East Coast Coffee Cake

This recipe is, of course, from one of my favorites; Vegan Brunch. Matt and I recently had a day off together, and this doesn't happen very often so I decided to make something special for breakfast. I didn't feel like going to the store and so I just flipped through my recipe books until I found something that I had all of the indredients for. I really don't have a lot of personal experience in making or eating coffee cake, but I figured it had to be delicious so I gave it a whirl! OF COURSE it turned out AWESOME and the two of us literally finished off the whole batch in less than 24 hours.



Isa mentions lots of great variations for this recipe, but again, I was just going with what we had on hand. Lucky for us, we had a jar of homemade blueberry jam from Matt's grandmother so that's what we used... and it was perfect.

Ingredients
Serves 8

For the topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 cup canola oil, plus up to 2 tbsp. more if needed

For the cake:
3/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
(3/4 cup jam)

1. Preheat the oven to 350*. Lighlty grease an 8-inch round springform pan or 8-inch square pan (I used a glass brownie pan and it worked fine). Measure out the milk for the cake and mix in the tsp. of viegar; set aside to curdle. Then begin preparing the topping.

2. In a small mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Drizzle in the canola oil by the tablespoonful (you can eyeball it). Use your fingers to swish around the mixture until crumbs form. Alternate swishing and adding canola oil until all the oil is used and large crumbs have formed. Some of the topping is still going to be sandy and that's fine, just so long as you have mostly nice big crumbs. You can add another tablespoon or two of oil if needed; it varies. Your topping should look something like this:

3. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the milk mixture, sugar, canola oil, and vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix it until smooth.

4. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan. Splotch the jam, if using, all over the batter with spoonfuls and use a knife to swirl into the batter. Add the crumb topping and pat down lightly. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a knife inserted through the center comes out clean.

Let cool for at least an hour before slicing and serving (This is the hardest part!). Sift a few teaspoons of  powdered sugar over the top once cool. Enjoy!