Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
Elliott's favorite birthday cake is a sour cream chocolate chip coffee cake that his mom used to make. I acquired the recipe a few years ago, but either because Elliott's mom knew it so well or because I did a bad job copying it, there are a few key details missing. Several years in, I think I've worked out the recipe gaps, so I'm recording it here so I don't have to re-invent the wheel every year.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts work well)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 stick butter (room temp)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 bag (10-12oz) chocolate chips
Process
- Preheat over to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a bundt pan. (For reference, the one I use has a 12 cup capacity. This seems to be about the right size. If you didn't have pan this large, you could probably use two standard loaf pans which are usually ~6 cup capacity.)
- Process nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon in a food processor until they take on a gravely consistency and put the nut/sugar mixture at the bottom of the pan
- Add baking soda and baking powder to sour cream
- Cream butter, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl
- Alternate adding sour cream mixture and flour to butter mixture, mixing lightly between additions
- Add vanilla and chocolate chips and mix until just combined (although as I recently learned on The Sporkful podcast, a common mistake is to under mix in fear of developing too much gluten structure and that can lead to subpar baked goods as well)
- Pour batter into pan on top of sugar/nut mixture
- Bake for ~45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (I've frequently found this takes a bit longer than 45 minutes, but I also suspect my oven runs cool.)