I have a favorite coffee cake recipe I’ve been using for a few years now, but I figured if I was going to spend a few weeks trying new recipes I ought to start with the basic version first. The topping is honestly the best part of coffee cake (in my opinion) so I set out to find one that went above and beyond. I found several contenders, but after reading The Kitchn do a coffeecake showdown I chose their winner: King Arthur.

Compared to my normal recipe, this one is a little more time intensive. The topping and filling mixtures were easy to throw together; though I was surprised to see a little unsweetened cocoa powder in the filling as that’s unusual. I used dutch processed since that’s what we had on hand. I was also slightly shocked at how much sugar goes in this whole thing! I realize it’s coffee cake, but something about putting a cup of granulated sugar in the topping, a cup of brown sugar in the filling, and then additional brown/granulated sugar in the cake seemed like a lot. I think I could feel my insulin spiking just thinking about it. I digress…

The cake portion isn’t difficult and very standard for an actual cake in that you cream the butter and eggs before adding other ingredients. Once you’ve got everything mixed you start creating the coffeecake. Cake batter, filling, cake batter, topping. Mine was abut 20 minutes into baking when I realized I forgot to do the marbling…. 😦

Despite the marbling, this looked really nice and tasted delicious as well. Personally, I do think you could cut back on the sugar in the cake portion but everyone else that had it said it was great so maybe it’s just me. This was a winner at our house and at least gives me more than one go-to coffee cake recipe when I need it!

Recipe Used: King Arthur