Coffee Coffee Cake

After almost two years of calling this state my second home, I've found that while there are a lot of things I love about living in Colorado (having a view of the Flatirons from pretty much everywhere never gets old), there are also a few (major) things that I don't love. One of these is the extreme whiplash that is Colorado weather. This week, for example, it went from being a very pleasant and springy 56 degrees on Monday to the literal negatives on Thursday. Considering my last post was pretty much an ode to how ready I am for spring, to say that I am over this would be an understatement. That being said, the Norwegians (I think) have a saying that "there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes," and I wholeheartedly agree with that. So I've been bundling up in my warm fleece jacket and making the best of it. I mean, I guess it's better than the 100-degree heat of Sacramento summers, right?

Thursday morning, therefore, presented me with the perfect opportunity to make Claire's Coffee Coffee Cake from Dessert Person. As the name suggests, it's a coffee cake that's actually flavored with coffee - brilliant idea! I am not necessarily a coffee drinker - I spent the better part of my teenage years trying to prove to my mom that I didn't inherit her caffeine sensitivity and then finally gave in about a year ago. That being said, I love the flavor of coffee, and I agree with Claire that it should be utilized in more desserts. This recipe is intended to be made in a 13x9-inch pan, and while I have one, there's no way I could eat that much cake without getting absolutely exhausted from it, so I opted to halve the recipe and bake it in an 8x8. This will probably be my standard maneuver for all 13x9 recipes from now on.

This cake has three major components. There's the batter, which is a pretty standard sour cream coffee cake batter that's flavored with brewed coffee and instant coffee granules. I used Trader Joe's cold brew granules, and while I planned on finishing up an old jug of actual Trader Joe's cold brew for this recipe as well, I decided last minute to get a fresh cup from a local coffee shop. I had to go there anyway to get something for the next recipe, and I wasn't even sure the jug in my fridge was still good anymore, so I figured that was the move. There's also a coffee ribbon that runs through the middle of the cake, which is made of a mixture of instant coffee granules, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Finally, what would a coffee cake be without a crumb topping? This one is flavored with (surprise) instant coffee granules (sensing a theme here?) and a little bit of cardamom. Claire seems to have an obsession with cardamom - it turns up in a really broad range of her recipes - and honestly, good for her.

Because of the multiple components, this recipe dirties up quite a few bowls. However, it's otherwise very easy and straightforward. While the recipe calls for a stand mixer, I used my hand mixer. I can see why Claire would opt for the stand mixer, as it's a pretty thick batter, but in her YouTube video for this recipe she said you could use a hand mixer, so I don't really think it matters. I'm beginning to notice a pattern in Claire's cake recipes (side note: I know I have pretty much only made cake recipes; I promise I'll change it up soon). Cream the butter and sugar, then beat the eggs to combine (if using oil, stream it into the combined sugar and eggs to make what I call "sweet mayo"), then add the rest of the dry and wet ingredients in an alternating fashion. This might seem nerdy, but one of my goals of this project is to be able to gradually develop and understanding of the patterns of baking so that I can feel more confident making adjustments and developing recipes of my own.

Probably the biggest gripe I have with living in Colorado is the altitude. Not necessarily the physical effects it has on me - I actually adjusted shockingly better than I thought in that department - but rather the variables it causes for baking. To be honest, I think the perception that "high altitude baking is sooo difficult" is a bit of an exaggeration. I have made many baked goods this year and the great majority of them have come out very nicely. That being said, I am a perfectionist, and while yes, something may turn out delicious, I'm always wondering if it was supposed to turn out a different way, or if it's not as perfect as it could be due to environmental factors. I make a few adjustments, like reducing the amount of leavening agents and increasing flour and liquid content, but I'm scared to go all the way with my adjustments (this is the cheat sheet I try to follow, but I am very inconsistent with it - for example, I have never increased my oven temperature). One of these days I'll have to perform a side-by-side test of the same recipe made exactly as instructed versus with the recommended altitude adjustments and examine the differences, but I'm waiting for a simple enough recipe that I don't feel bad "wasting" ingredients on a second batch. Needless to say, if I had known in early 2021 how much I'd be getting into baking, I would not have chosen to go to school in Colorado. Excitingly, I'll be in Edinburgh, Scotland (!) next year, a whopping 154 feet above sea level, but the tradeoff is that I'll be in a British dorm with a stone age kitchen. Can't have it all, I guess.

Anyways, the reason I say all of this is that, to be completely honest, this cake came out just a little denser and drier than I would have liked. It definitely was still edible and even enjoyable, but it didn't have that super moist and fluffy crumb that I want in my cakes. For total transparency, this is the exhaustive list of adjustments I made to the recipe:

• Used a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer
• Used an equal mixture of granulated sugar and dark brown sugar in place of light brown sugar (light brown sugar has around half the molasses content as dark brown, so this should've effectively the same thing)
• Halved the recipe (maybe I should've baked this cake slightly less - I baked it for 40 minutes, the low end of the time range in the recipe. Next time I halve a recipe like this, I'll try to check for doneness ~10 minutes before the recipe says)
• Made the altitude-related adjustments I detailed above

I'm very careful not to make any crazy off-the-page adjustments that would dramatically change the outcome of the recipe, but I definitely have the capacity for human error. I found that a few people online have also made this cake and thought it was a little dry - I usually ignore complaints like these, because they are often followed with "I added X and omitted Y and cut the amound of Z in half", but sometimes it's just an issue with the recipe. Claire is very detail-oriented, though, and I find it hard to imagine she'd put anything out into the world that she hasn't tested ten times already. I think this recipe merits a redo, at a lower-altitude environment, because I'm stubborn like that. For now, I'll keep doing what I've been doing, because most of the cakes I've made have turned out very well.

For all that I've said about the texture of this cake, the flavor is actually pretty outstanding. The coffee comes through nicely, especially through that ribbon layer in the middle, but isn't overpowering. The whole thing reads like a very milky latte, perhaps with a dash of cinnamon as well. The cardamom in the streusel comes through a little bit more here than in the banana bread I made a few days ago, but it's more of a background aroma, and I'm still not sure I would've detected it if I didn't know it was in there. One of these days I'll have to do a cardamom vs. no cardamom blind tasting, because I really really want to like it and I suspect I would if I could taste it a little more. I think it's just a Claire thing to add really tiny amounts of random spices to things just because. 

Overall rating: 7/10 

I'm not in a music sharing mood today, but one thing I've been enjoying recently is the BBC mockumentary Cunk on Earth, which is on Netflix now and is extremely hilarious. That's all for today, folks.