Pecan cinnamon sourcream coffee cake

Now let’s talk about something sweet. After buying a load of nuts because we are trying to eat more healthy, and still have left over half tin of sour cream from the artichoke dish – I’m looking for ways to use these up. The cooking gods above must have heard! Soon I encountered this recipe on a friend’s Facebook feed, and I just had to make it myself!

Disclaimer I’m not the biggest sweets fan – and yes I’m a huge HUGE salty crunchy potato chip fan. Maybe I had one too many chocolates as a kid. Also a few years ago I had a super terrible root canal experience so that kind of scarred me for life. Nowadays I tend to steer clear of most sweet sugary treats. I will however, indulge if someone else made homemade sweets, or bake myself. I find home-made desserts emit much love – the fact someone mixed and measured, melted and stirred – it makes the treat that much more special. Baking myself, I get to have more control of what goes into the mixing bowl instead of dealing with mystery amount of fat and sugar. Typically if I come across a recipe, I’ll cut the sugar to ½ to ¾ of the original, and reduce the butter if I can. I also get to throw in ingredients that I know, like whole nuts, and actual vanilla extract, instead of just “flavoring number 5000” and "food coloring 200". Baking is fun and sometimes therapeutic too. Sometimes you just do a bit of arm workout, fingers in the sticky dough, and watch the bun or cake rise slowly in your tiny oven window. I swear, a sense of accomplishment will rise and make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So onto today’s baking adventure!

What you need:

Pecan crumble:
- 1.5 cup of pecan, chopped to small pieces
- 1/3 cup of brown and 1/3 cup of white sugar (or ½ cup each if you like it sweeter)
- 3 tbsp of unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tsp of salt (I like coarse salt, so you get certain pieces of the saltiness in some bites)
- 2 tsp of cinnamon

Cake batter:
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- ¾ tsp of baking powder
- ½ tsp of salt
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup of butter (or 1/2 if you want it buttery) –softened (I throw it in the microwave for 20 sec and
mush it first, comes out a nice consistency)
- 1/2 cup of white sugar
- 1 cup sour cream (woohoo I used up my sour cream!)

Recipe:
- For the crumble, mix nuts, sugars, cinnamon and melted butter together. Keep aside.
- For the batter, mix the flour, baking soda and powder, salt together. In separate (larger) bowl, mix the butter, sour cream, and sugar until smooth. Crack eggs into the butter mixture one at a time and mix until smooth each time.
- Pour flour mix into egg mix 1/3 at a time and fold carefully until blended. Do this a few times until all the flour is mixed in. I read the original comment said not to “over mix” – not sure what that does but don’t go hulk at it I suppose. I don’t have a mixing unit so my arm’s mixing power is all the mixing we’re going to get.
- Pour half of the batter into a bake safe bowl, I used a 8x8 glass tin with oiled sides to prevent sticking.
- Pour half of the pecan mix on top as a thin layer. Pour another half of the batter on top. This is the tricky step because the batter is pretty thick and the pecans move around a lot. I just sectioned some batter off and scooped smaller spoonful of it to layer it, doesn’t need to be 100% perfect. Repeat with the pecan mix on top.
- 350F for 40 min. I took mine out at 30 min to test but it was a bit raw still. Your goal is to have a
toothpick go in and come out clean. General rule of thumb, the deeper the dish, the longer time you will need.

Cut and serve while hot, drizzle some of your favorite honey on top.

The original recipe came form allrecipe.com. Gotta give them credit too. See original link below.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246868/pecan-sour-cream-coffee-cake/

Verdict and notes:
-I did this around 10 pm and let me tell you.. don’t do this at 10 pm. Well, let’s just say I was unable to resist the fresh out of the oven cake and… you know. So good, highly recommended.