I had some leftover sour cream from a very decadent devil’s food cake and fudge frosting (thank you Anna Olson for making my clothes tighter), so what better way to utilize your leftover sour cream than to make a sour cream coffee cake! For anyone who is into baking and wanting to learn a little more about it, I highly suggest watching Anna Olson’s show called “Bake” on the Food Network. She goes through one style of something and expands the skill by 3 levels. Although I am in school for baking arts, I have absolutely learned some new and interesting things from that TV show.

This cake is a classic, home-style, European coffee cake that you can jazz up how ever you like. In this case, I decided to top it with a cinnamon, cardamom streusel and pecans. Although, were I to do it again, I would add some tart berries into the equation, blueberries maybe?

Cake:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
pecan halves (however many you want for the top)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease an 8″ spring form pan.
2. Add baking soda to sour cream and let stand.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, salt and baking powder.
4. Cream butter, gradually adding in the sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs one at a time until like and fluffy. Add vanilla.
6. Slowly add dry ingredients into butter mixture alternately with sour cream-soda mixture.
7. Pour half batter into prepared pan, and sprinkle 1/3 of the streusel topping. Pour the rest of the batter on top and sprinkle with the rest of the streusel and pecans.
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Streusel:
6 tbsp sugar (white or brown)
6 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Mix sugar, flour, melted butter, cardamom, and cinnamon in a small bowl until clumps form.

On a side note, here is a photo of the birthday cake I made for my boyfriend a week ago. OH BOY was it chocolatey. (Excuse the crappy iPhone photo!) That many Kit-Kat’s deserve extra attention.