Greek Yogurt Coffee Cake

I hesitated to even share this recipe at first because it was a bit of a failure. In every sense of the word and at basically every turn.

Apparently I used too small of a pan. The batter poofed up rapidly and then began to spill out the sides. I had to put a sheet pan on the rack below to catch the batter drippings. While the batter was busy poofing up it was also busy sucking the struesel topping downward to the bottom of the pan where it all pooled to form what could best be described as a crust.

When I finally got the cake out of the oven, about 30 or 45 minutes after the suggested cook time of 50 to 60 minutes, the cake stuck to the sides of the pan, presumably because I forgot the flour portion of the grease and flour step, and when I ripped the outside ring of the springform pan away, it took parts of the side of the cake with it.

The cake looked craggy and uneven. The middle of the cake was sunken and probably undercooked. The outside edges were signficantly taller than the middle and crispy. And I did I mention all the struesel pretty much sunk to the bottom? I spread the glaze across the entire cake and that just made everything worse. It looked like I was trying to cover up the craggy uneven crust on top the cake.

Despite all the drawbacks I just mentioned, the taste of the cake was pretty dang good. Great even. So great that I ate a piece for lunch and then another piece for dinner. Would you believe that I actually haven’t had a real meal all day?

While I contemplated trying this cake again in a different pan and/or tweaking the ingredients, there was something almost charming about this cake failure. It was the taste. So I decided to share the recipe anyway in case anyone would like a coffee cake-esque cake set on top a streusel crust. I mean really. Who wouldn’t want that?

Because this cake was such an utter failure, I am not attributing the recipe to anyone. I did base this recipe on a Greek Yogurt Coffee Cake recipe but I’m quite sure the author of that recipe does not want this failure attributed to her cake or recipe.

cake ingredients.

directions.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch springform pan with nonstick spray and set aside. (I used a 9-inch pan which was too small.) Mix together streusel ingredients until crumbly, or pulse ingredients using a food processor. Set aside.

2. Cream together butter, sugar, and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy. Add in vanilla and greek yogurt and mix until smooth.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients beating over low-speed.
4. Sprinkle ⅓ of the streusel mixture in the bottom of the pan. Pour half of the batter on top and spread it around; the batter will be thick and difficult to spread. Sprinkle with another third of the streusel mixture then top with remaining batter. Sprinkle the rest of the streusel mixture over the top.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 90 minutes until cake is cooked through and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
6. To make the icing, combine melted butter, powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon of milk or cream, and vanilla in a small bowl. Whisk until smooth. Add additional milk or cream by the tablespoon to reach the desired consistency. Drizzle or spread the icing over the top of cooled coffee cake. Slice and enjoy!

Unfortunately the pictures don’t do any justice to this cake. It’s dense and moist and almost like a dense, moist cake on top of a pie crust which is an interesting concept if you stop and think about it. At any rate, if I wasn’t giving away the rest of the cake I would thoroughly enjoy eating it for days.

Recipe rating:  (based on taste!)