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Sour Cream Coffee Cake

This satisfying, old-fashioned cake has a delicious ripple of brown sugar and walnuts running through it.

Ingredients

Serves 12

1 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  1. Step 1

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 10-inch (12-cup) tube pan; dust with flour, tapping out excess. Mix first 3 ingredients in small bowl; set aside.

    Step 2

    Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined after each addition. Mix in sour cream and vanilla. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Spoon half of batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle half of brown sugar mixture over and swirl gently into batter, using small knife. Spoon remaining batter over. Sprinkle remaining brown sugar mixture over.

    Step 3

    Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool cake in pan 10 minutes. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Turn out cake onto rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap and store at room temperature.)

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Reviews (77)

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  • Made this again with a delicious variation: sprinkled 1 large granny smith's worth of peeled, diced apple pieces in between the two layers.

    • sitagaki

    • 6/30/2015

  • Nice and moist, with good cinnamon flavor--brought it into work and it disappeared very quickly! I cut the sugar in both the cake and topping by 1/4 cup based on previous comments, and that was about perfect--4 forks with the modification. I also baked the cake in a 9x13 pan for 25 minutes since I didn't have a bundt pan, and it still inverted easily.

    • sitagaki

    • 6/24/2015

  • The cake is nice and moist but way too sugary. You could easily cut in half the brown sugar in the topping -- I didn't even use all the topping I made and it's still too sugary! It was also pretty tough to remove from the bundt pan, but maybe that's par for the course with bundt cakes. Try using a non-stick pan if you can!

    • JMWinLondon

    • 9/28/2014

  • I was wrong! It looked a little funky on the top, but it's moist and delish!

    • mimiharrison

    • Washington, DC

    • 3/7/2014

  • Waaaaa, I'm so sad. I used low fat four cream by mistake and the cake looks like a disaster¿..

    • mimiharrison

    • Washington, DC

    • 3/7/2014

  • This recipe is identical to the sour cream coffee cake recipe in my Kitchenaid cookbook that came with my machine. Some amounts differ; flour/butter are halved here and the topping makes a bit more.

    • janecherry

    • and personal chef in Tucson.

    • 12/20/2013

  • This is a classic delicious coffee cake. This is a cake my mother made and having lost the recipe I was delighted to find it here. I feel the need to defend this recipe from those saying the filling sunk, there was too much, the cake collapsed, etc. No it does not seem that there is enough batter as the pan is barely half full, but there is. Yes you must test with a toothpick or knife, do not go by how brown the cake appears or you will underbake. I can't even imagine how you would get the filling to sink in the cake, as the batter is quite dense so they must just have done something completely wrong - started with melted butter rather than room temp? Butter and flour the pan assiduously as complete coverage is key to the well-cooled cake dropping easily and in-tact out of the overturned pan. Can't comment on the 9x13 pan idea as the result in a tube or bundt pan is so easy and beautiful. Dust this lightly with powdered sugar, set it on a paper doily on a glass cake stand and you have old fashioned perfection.

    • wynnedale

    • CA

    • 12/29/2012

  • I substituted sour cream with plain greek yogurt... and added some blueberries dusted with flour in the centre with the brown sugar and cinnamon, leaving out the nuts. Fantastic!!

    • kbradt

    • 6/3/2012

  • Forgot to mentioned I used a 9x13 pan and baked it 35-40 minutes.

    • rapisam

    • Seattle, WA

    • 12/18/2011

  • Wonderful easy recipe. But like the many other reviewers, I also cut the sugar by half (1/2c brown sugar & 3/4 reg sugar in the cake mix)I also substituted half the butter with apple sauce. It turned out great both times. My family cannot get enough!

    • rapisam

    • Seattle, WA

    • 12/18/2011

  • I have been making this for some time and it always gets rave reviews. Make sure the pan is really well floured--I actually have switched to a silicon pan. Make sure the cake is REALLY cool before turning out. The silicon lets me run a thin spatula to make sure all is well. LOVE this recipe.

    • lbaty

    • DC

    • 4/16/2011

  • I was really tired when I made this so I accidentally blended the streusel (i.e. pulverized it) and then blended it into the batter. It was amazing anyway. My only other change was using fage 2% greek yogurt instead of sour cream. I ate chunks of this with large glasses of milk and it was a perfect tea-time cake!

    • akalish

    • New York, NY

    • 12/19/2010

  • 男孩,我今天下午两次,机器人做了这个蛋糕h times the lovely crunchy nutty bit sunk to the bottom of the pan (top of the alleged coffee cake, once cooled and inverted). Used both a bundt and tube pan with equally disastrous results. Kudos to those who get the thing to work perfectly for years. Maybe the key is a 9x13 pan? And one hour is too long for a dark pan! Will seek another coffee cake recipe in the future.

    • hspurgin

    • San Diego

    • 8/16/2009

  • I've been making this cake for years, and is always a hit! I make some modifications, I add thinly sliced apples on top of the 1st sugar/nut layer.

    • camerena13

    • New Hampshire

    • 3/1/2009

  • I made this in a 9x13 pan, following another reviewer's advice to cut the sugar in the topping by 1/2 and cutting the sugar in the cake down to 1 cup. The sweetness was just right. I also added a couple of tablespoons of butter to make a streusel, as advised, and was glad I chose to sprinkle it only atop the cake and didn't try to swirl it throughout. But there was so little cake! 1-1/2 cups of flour does not really make enough cake to fill a 9x13 pan. The flavor was yummy, though. I can see how a tube or bundt pan would be better because in my experience, sour cream cakes can be pretty heavy. Also, make sure to cream the butter and sugar together for a while so that it really gets fluffy.

    • Anonymous

    • South Bend, IN

    • 2/7/2009

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