Sunday Special Coffee Cake

Long before I knew anything about cooking, Superman was the cook in the family. (Sad, but true!) during that period, I subscribed to the McCall's Baking School pages. It was one of those a-few-pages-a-month kind of subscriptions. You put them in the notebook they sent along with the initial shipment. Frankly, it was stuff that was too difficult for me, so it really never got used much. Except for this one recipe. This recipe is amazing and a favorite of our household for many, many years.

Superman made it for us all Sunday night and I knew you all would love it!

Sunday Special Coffee Cake
from the McCall's Baking School

Ingredients:

Topping -
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter - softened
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Batter -
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Make topping: In a small bowl, place 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and the ground cinnamon. Using a pastry blender, cut butter into sugar-flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs and no large lumps of butter remain. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 375F. Using shortening, grease one 8 x 8 x 2 metal baking pan (we use glass because it is what we have) or one 9 x 1 1/2 round cake pan. Set pan aside.

3. Make batter: Mix together flour with baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4. In medium-sized bowl, beat the egg until egg is frothy. Add 3/4 cup sugar and 1/3 cup melted butter; continue beating until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Beat in milk and vanilla.

5. Add flour mixture to egg mixture. Using wooden spoon, stir batter until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle reserved topping evenly over the batter.

6. Place pan on center rack of preheated oven and bake 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and place pan on wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Serve.


Note: This recipe advises that it may be doubled and just placed in a 9 x 13, but we've never had success doing this. When we need to serve more than the recipe will serve, we end up using two 8 x 8 pans instead.