Berry Coffee Cake with Streusel

Ingredients:

for the cake:

2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup Land O Lakes® half and half
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
2 cups flour
2 cups frozen mixed berries (I used a mix of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

for the streusel:

1/4 cup cold Land O Lakes® Light Butter with Canola Oil
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Butter and flour or spray with cooking spray with flour a 9-inch springform pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups of flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In large mixing bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, egg and vanilla paste. Add the flour mixture alternately with the half and half, beginning and ending with flour until a thick dough forms. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Top with berries in a single layer. Set aside.

In a small bowl, using a fork, mix together all of the streusel ingredients until a rough crumb forms. Sprinkle streusel evenly over the raw cake and berries. Bake about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry. Remove to a wire tack to cool. After about 15 minutes, release the cake from the pan and serve.

My thoughts:

I love streusel topping but I hardly ever make it because I always seem to forget to soften the butter for it, especially for recipes like this where there is no butter in the batter. So when Land O Lakes® approached me to create a recipe using their light butter with canola oil, I thought I'd see how it worked for streusel making. Since it is spreadable right out of the container, unlike butter, I didn't have to wait for it to warm up before using it. I think I broke my own personal record on getting a cake into the oven; even with the streusel, it took me less than 15 minutes to move from taking out raw ingredients to a cake in the oven. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but as you can see, the streusel was wonderfully crisp and buttery tasting, the perfect foil for the juicy berries. The cake itself was great too, very flavorful and moist but definitely a coffee cake, not just a plain cake with berries. It has a fine crumb and firm texture that supports the berries and topping beautifully.