Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Better Than the Bux: Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

I work at a coffee shop here in Madison. In fact, you probably have a similar one near you since there seems to be one on every street corner. I try to avoid eating the pastries, since my mindless snacking the first day of work put me over my daily calories before 11am. The coffee cakes always tempt me, especially the Banana Chocolate Chip variety. Phil's family was visiting from out of town so I decided to recreate it for them. At least that way I wouldn't down the whole batch myself. Well, I solved my pastry munching problem in an unexpected way- my homemade coffee cake put the store bought cake to shame! My new problem is that I can't stop thinking about my "Better Than the Bux" cake.

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
Adapted From Bon Appetit - January 2003

12 servings

1 bag semisweet chocolate chips- 1 1/4 cups for streusel, mix the rest in the batter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
About 3 very ripe, mashed up bananas
3 tablespoons of sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.

Streusel: Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon in a small bowl, set aside.
The Dry Team: Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into medium bowl.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients and blend well. Fold in the extra chocolate chips, if desired. Come on, you know you want to!

Spread half of the batter (about 2 cups) in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.


The ingredients- mostly stuff you probably have on hand.

The streusel ingredients....
...mix them up!
The dry team. Note: These pictures are of a half batch.


The wet team. I broke the yoke, opps!
The bananas and 3 tablespoons of sour cream.
My $5 mixer from the thrift store works just nicely.
Here's the part where Amanda says BAM! Extra chocolate chips!
Ready for the oven!

Fresh out of the oven, yum!
The final product! Phil says my extra chocolate chips make this more like breakfast brownies, but I see nothing wrong with that.

2 comments:

  1. Hmmm ... coffee? Or a glass of ice-cold whole milk? I can't decide ... ;-)

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  2. Awesome with milk! This is so good!

    ReplyDelete