Cinnamon Sugar Zucchini Coffee Cake
Anyone who knows me, also knows how much I like coffee cakes and are my absolute favorite pastry, bar none. I also enjoy baking things with “not your usual” ingredients. So, when I saw this recipe for a zucchini coffee cake, I knew right away it was my next baking project. How did it turn out? Just a hint: the aroma in the kitchen was out of this world. Now you’ll have to make it to see how it tasted.
Adapted from and inspired by a recipe on www.pinchofyum.com
Click here for recipe
1 1/3 C (9 1/3 oz/264 g) light brown sugar
1/3 C (78 ml) canola oil
1 egg, room temperature
1 C (236 ml) buttermilk, room temperature
1 t (4 g) baking soda
1 t (5 ml) vanilla
¼ t salt
2 ½ C (12 ½ oz/354 g) all-purpose flour
1 ½ C grated zucchini
1 T orange zest
Topping
1 C (7 oz/198 g) granulated sugar
1 ½ t (3 g) cinnamon
2 T (28 g) butter
Position oven rack in middle position and heat to 325° F (163° C). Spray a 9 x 12-inch cake pan with nonstick baking spray with flour. Set aside. Press excess moisture out of the zucchini shreds.
In large bowl, mix cake ingredients in order given. Do not over mix. A few light flour streaks are ok.
Combine topping ingredients and with pastry cutter or in small food processor cut in butter until you have a crumbly, wet sand looking topping. Pour half of batter into prepared pan smoothing with a small offset spatula into an even layer. Cover with half of crumb topping. Repeat with remaining batter and topping.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Rotate pan one half turn midway through baking. Top will be crunchy and textured and cake will bounce back when gently pressed.
Serves: 10 to 12
Click here for Baker's Notes
4 Aug 18 – Read online coments but few made recipe and there were no good suggestions/changes recommended. Ingredient wise, I used KAF AP flour and dried orange peel in the batter. I’ve never used dried peel before so it will be interesting. I bought two 10 x 2-inch zucchinis. One zucchini grated on large holes of box grater produced 1 ½ cups schredded before squeeing out liquid. Made topping first and refrigerated as I made batter. I sprayed and lined pan with parchment paper. Topping weighed approx 224 g. Batter came together as described above with no changes other than noted above except flour quantity/weight. I used 5 oz per cup. Batter weighed approx 1138 g. Spreading half of the batter first on the bottomm and second layer was tedious because it was so thin. Baked in island oven for 42 mins. Top sprung back and toothpick came out clean. Coffee cake rose more than I expected but less I would like. I’m rethinking what would be a better pan, maybe two 8-inch round cake pans which equals 100 sq inches vs 117 sq inches for 9 x 11-inch pan. Excellet flavor and good texture. The crunch topping was nice on the first day but softened quickly thereafter. Short shelf life. As it turned out, the orange flavor from dried orange peel was pleasantly noticeable. Based on spice bottle label, I used the recommended 1/3 quantity dried to specified recipe quantity. In this case that was 1 t.