Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

    Its time again for me to make something for church. My mom's class usually has a small breakfast of coffee with a sweet store bought item. People take turns bringing breakfast and when it's my mom's turn, I volunteer to bake something. I've made pumpkin muffins, lemon blueberry yogurt bread, and Sunday morning muffins (pumpkin cream cheese muffins).

    I wanted to do something different, but something that everyone would like. For a while I have found recipe that I wanted to make, but didn't because they contained nuts. I like baking with nuts (especially pecans), but I was always worried to make something for Sunday with nuts if anyone had a nut allergy because I didn't want someone to have a reaction or not have breakfast because they don't like nuts. Well, this week I decided to make a recipe with nuts; I chose walnuts since my mom hates pecans.



    After looking on foodgawker, Tasty Kitchen, and other food sites, I decided to make the Cream cheese Coffee cake from Dulce Dough. I actually found many recipe that looked great, but were either not portable or practical for a quick Sunday morning breakfast at church.
   This recipe is like one that I found for pumpkin coffee cake from another site. I am not a fan of cream cheese by its self; It has to be baked into something or flavored (like the strawberry cream cheese for bagels). When I made the Sunday morning muffins with a cinnamon cream cheese center it was a big hit for both the people at church and our family.

Sunday Morning Muffins a.k.a pumpkin muffins with
a cream cheese center and a streusel topping.

I also decided to make a batch of pumpkin muffins for my class and to give a few to the adults class.

The coffee cake was a hit with the adults class. When I was making the cake I was a little worried since the lemon flavor in the filling was very strong. It turned out to be really good in the cake.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Recipe from: Dulce Dough

serves: 12

           Cake

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sour cream

            Filling

• 1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
• 3 tbsp powdered sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice, fresh

             Topping

• 1/4 cup nuts (pecans or walnuts), finely chopped
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  -Powdered sugar for dusting before serving (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F;  spray with baking spray a 10-inch tube pan.(see note below)2. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.3.  Add eggs slowly and then beat in vanilla.4. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt.5. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and sour cream to wet ingredients, beating well.6. Make the filling by mixing the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth.7. Spoon half of the batter into the pan then spread filling evenly over batter; spoon the remainder of the batter over top of the filling.8. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over the top of the batter.9. Bake at 350°F for 40 - 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.10. Cool for 15 minutes before you remove the cake from the pan; allow to cool before serving.-I dusted the cake with a little powdered sugar before serving.

Notes:
     We didn't have a 10'' tube pan, so I used a bundt pan. When I was making the layers, I realized that the "top" that had the streusel mix would turn out to be the bottom, so I did this...
- pour some of the batter in the pan
- add in the filling
-add in some more of the batter
- pour in the nut mix
-and cover with the rest of the batter.
>Next time I might add the nut mix in the pan first so it can caramelize (like with money bread) and make the cake look more like Jill's  @ Dulce Dough.