Cinnamon Roll Pound Cake Coffee Cake

After a week of midterms I finally have time to blog again! The other day, I was looking through all the "food porn" sites such as foodgawker and tastespotting and is it weird that I wasn't getting inspiration? I literally couldn't think of what I wanted to blog about or didn't see anything on one of the sites that made me say " I am sooooo making that!!"

I went on other food blogs and still had no luck in what to make so I went to the foodnetwork site where Coffee Cake entered my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love a great coffee cake but when I see recipes that have twice as much butter in the crumb topping than in the cake, meaning TWO STICKS, I have some problems. So I came up with this.

I guess you can say this is an experiment within a recipe test. For the cake base, I went for a pound cake recipe I found, but never tried, by Tish Boyle that looked delicious and moist. I actually halved the pound cake recipe for my cake which was actually not enough for the cake. Definitely make the whole batch of cake for a thick cake!

Anyways, I decided to experiment and top the batter with what I normally put in a cinnamon roll, brown sugar and cinnamon, swirl it in and waited to see how it turned out. I then iced it with a powdered sugar icing. This is exactly why it's a cinnamon roll, in a pound cake, eaten as a coffee cake. This Pound Cake was moist and dense and the topping gave a cinnamon roll flavor with coffee cake texture without all the butter. The pound cake itself was great so if you don't feel like making a Cinnamon Roll Pound Cake Coffee Cake, the pound cake is worth it!

Cinnamon Roll Pound Cake Coffee Cake

Cake Base Adapted from Tish Boyle's Lemon Pound Cake

Makes 1-9 inch cake or 1 Loaf

Ingredients

Cake:
2 cups sifted cake flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup heavy cream

Topping
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Icing
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 lb powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk

Directions
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and dust a 9 inch cake pan and set aside. (Or, if you want a plain pound cake, grease the bottom and sides of a 9 1/2 x 5 1/2-inch loaf pan. Dust the pan with flour and set aside.)

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine well and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until very creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sugar and beat the mixture at medium-high speed until very light, about 4 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally (the mixture should look curdled at this point). Beat in the citrus zest and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture at low speed in three additions, alternating it with the heavy cream in two additions. Mix just until the flour is incorporated.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon until combines and sprinkle over the top of the batter. Swirl into the cake.

Bake for about 30-40 min. or until the skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 10 min and remove the cake from the pan to continue cooking on a cooling rack

(If making the plain pound cake, bake the cake for 60 to 70 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.)

Meanwhile make the icing by melting the butter in the microwave. Add the vanilla, powdered sugar and milk and mix until combines and no lumps are present. Drizzle the cake with the icing as you desire.

-Aaron John