Coffee And Hazelnut Streusel Bundt Cake

I know it's not like me to make a cake without mounds of butter icing or covered in fondant, but this is a different kind of cake for a special occasion. A year ago tomorrow my mum had a heart attack (don't worry she's fine!) and from that day she quit smoking in a bid to get in super healthy condition, and she's stuck to it which is amazing. So rather than dwell on the poorly heart issue we decided it would be nice to celebrate her achievement on not smoking for a year, which when you go from 30 a day since she was a hippy Beatles loving teeneager is brilliant.

We're actually going out tomorrow for a meal to celebrate it properly, but I thought as she's had to cut out so many luxuries I would try to make her a heart-friendly cake to take to her work to share. While this cake may not be 'totally healthy' as such, it's low cholesterol and I've followed some rules we got from the hospital like using butter instead of hard margerine as there's not as much rubbish in it etc. There's also reduced fat sour cream used rather than it being full butter which helps, and also only some runny icing rather than the usual lashings of buttercream or rich icing and chocolate. While of course it's ok to have proper cake now and then, I thought it'd be nice to have a slightly better cake health wise to actually be able to have a proper slice of and enjoy. Also she is an absolute coffee addict so this was an obvious choice and the toasted hazelnuts always go brilliantly with coffee anyway so all in all I think it was a really good choice of cake for this occasion.

I also got to use my bundt tin for the first time, I got it from Tesco for about £8 I think and this recipe was for a 10 cup recipe, I wasn't sure what that meant but it was perfect for this tin, and it's quite large so it worked out well. It was quite scary trying to get the cake out of the tin without ruining the nice pattern and thank fudge it came out without a problem and beautifully smooth. And even if you do loose a bit of the cake when trying to get it out...runny icing is a great glue and can hide all manner of sins! I've adapted this slightly from a recipe I found on Eating Well.

I should also add that while I am definitely not a coffee fan I did have some, and the texture in insanely light and fluffy, in that sense I think this could be one of the best cakes I've baked!

Right let's get started.

Ingredients

Streusel Filling

• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 3 tablespoons soft dark brown sugar, I like to use Tate & Lyle
• 3 tablespoons chopped toasted hazelnuts (they just have a nicer flavour)
• 2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Cake Ingredients

• 360g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 300lm reduced-fat sour cream or low-fat plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 90g butter unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup canola oil - we don't really have that here so they say you can use vegetable oil
• 400g sugar sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg whites

Glaze Ingredients

• 60g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder mixed with 2 tablespoons hot water or 2 tablespoons brewed coffee
• 1 tablespoon chopped toasted hazelnuts for garnish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C / 350°F. Coat a 10-cup Bundt pan or tube pan with low fat cooking spray.
2. To prepare streusel: Combine 3 tablespoons plain flour, brown sugar and hazelnuts, 2 tablespoons espresso powder and melted butter in a small bowl.
3. To prepare cake: Whisk plain flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Stir together sour cream (or yogurt) and vanilla in a small bowl.
4. Beat butter, oil and granulated sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until well combined. Add eggs and egg whites, beating after each addition until just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream (or yogurt) mixture, starting and ending with the dry ingredients and beating on low speed just until incorporated after each addition, scraping down the sides as necessary.
5. Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle evenly with the streusel mixture. Top with the remaining batter and smooth the top. Mine sunk quite far down so I'd suggest maybe putting it in a bit higher up with less batter having to go on the streusel mix.
6. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. To prepare glaze: Place icing sugar in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon espresso mixture (or coffee) and stir until smooth. Add up to 1 tablespoon more of the liquid to thin the glaze to desired consistency. I found mine was still quite grainy so I sieved mine like a crazy person but you could always add more water to try to dissolve it before mixing it with the icing sugar. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. Garnish with chopped hazelnuts, if desired. I did then add some more white runny icing for a bit of contrast.
8. Eat, Nom!

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