Category Archives: Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More

By Carole Walter

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

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banana_cakeCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

What does one do when the intended last recipe from this book fails miserably and there’s a pile of overripe bananas sitting on the counter? Try one last recipe that hopefully includes a lot of bananas!

banana_cake2This basic cake starts out by creaming butter and sugar, then adding eggs. In the meantime, a couple of bananas are pureed in the food processor, strained and mixed with sour cream. Does it surprise you that I skipped the straining part? My bananas looked smooth enough, and I don’t think it hurt the finished product. Anyway, you alternately add the dry and wet ingredients to the batter and then stir in some miniature chocolate chips. The cake gets baked in a bundt pan for about an hour.

I had no problems with this recipe. In fact, it didn’t even stick to my sorely scratched, nonstick bundt pan. The cake was tender with just the right amount of chocolate and banana flavor. It quickly became a breakfast favorite with some guests I had staying at the house.

So that’s it for Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. I have mixed feelings about this book. There were a couple of really good recipes, such as the lemon pound cake and the rustic walnut horns, but most of them were just so-so. I haven’t baked much out of Walter’s other books, but I do have her cookie cookbook that will probably show up here sooner or later.

Black Raspberry Jam Squares

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Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

You know how when you make a recipe and it doesn’t turn out right and you can’t figure out if you did something wrong or if it is the recipe’s fault? Well, that’s what’s going on here. I’m pretty sure I followed the recipe closely, but one bite of these squares was enough; they were promptly thrown in the trash. I didn’t even bother to take pictures.

At first glance, these squares looked promisingly different. The recipe starts off with a shortbread crust that is spread with black raspberry jam. The squares are then topped with a cinnamon meringue studded with walnuts and baked until the meringue is firm.

I had no problems putting the squares together, and they smelled pretty good while baking. But the shortbread crust turned out chalky and gritty, and the jam overwhelmed everything. Even the meringue had its share of problems, including an unappetizing wet texture underneath a hard crust.

This was supposed to be my last recipe out of this book, but I just can’t end it on such a dismal note. That and I have a pile of very ripe bananas sitting on my counter that either have to be used or thrown away. So one Banana Chocolate Chip Cake coming up . . .

Rustic Cinnamon Walnut Horns

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walnut_horns3Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

I’m not sure what to classify these as. Are they cookies? Mini cakes? The lazy person’s croissants? Whatever you want to call them, they are fantastic! Warm from the oven, they are soft and pillowy and full of cinnamony goodness. The walnuts give the horns a nice crunch without overwhelming the other flavors.

You start off by making a batch of the yeasted simple sweet dough. Once the dough has rested overnight in the refrigerator, you roll the dough in chopped walnuts and cinnamon sugar and then roll them out into a square. The dough is then cut into triangles, brushed with an egg wash, sprinkled with more cinnamon sugar and walnuts, and finally rolled into croissant shapes and baked.

There’s something about this yeasted sweet dough that goes well with cinnamon and nuts. I suspect that any nut would work well here. Once you get the yeasted sweet dough made, these are a snap to assemble, but they are even easier to eat.

Dimpled Sugar Cake

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dimple_sugar_cake3Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

My first try at Walter’s yeasted simple sweet dough didn’t go well (remember that blueberry pizza?), but I felt like I should give it another go since I wasn’t sure why it didn’t work before. So I whipped up another batch and used half of it to make this easy cake.

Once you’ve rested the dough overnight in the refrigerator, you gently knead in some plumped raisins. Normally, I’d substitute cranberries for the raisins, but I was out, so raisins it was. The dough is pressed into a baking dish and left to rise. Right before baking, you “dimple” the dough with your fingertips. The holes are filled with butter and brown sugar, and cinnamon sugar is sprinkled over the whole thing. As the cake bakes, the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon sugar melt and form a slight crust.

And how was the cake? Much better than I thought it would be and definitely better than the blueberry pizza. Even with the raisins, I really liked the cake, especially warm from the oven. There is something about this dough that goes so well with cinnamon.

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Biscuits

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cinnamon_pullapartsCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

I’ve tried this recipe twice. The first time was while vacationing with my family. I made these sweet biscuits one morning for breakfast, and before I could even blink, the entire pan was gone. The only evidence left were the sad little piles of pecans that everybody had picked out.

(If I had known that so many people hated nuts, I wouldn’t have even added them. Personally, I LIKED the pecans and thought they added a nice little crunch.)

My major complaint, at that time, was that the biscuits didn’t really rise. That’s the story of my life when it comes to biscuits. So my second attempt was focused on getting the biscuits to go up, not out. I also increased the amount of cinnamon sugar that was sprinkled onto the dough because I thought they weren’t cinnamony enough. The above picture was from my first batch. I didn’t get pictures of the second batch, but they looked sort of like the biscuits had attempted to vomit out their insides.

In other words, they weren’t pretty. They were mighty tasty, just not pretty. Tall, fluffy biscuits, it seems, are just not going to be part of my repertoire.

These were buttermilk-based biscuits that are rolled out, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The dough is folded like a letter before being cut into rounds. The rounds of dough are brushed with more melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and then baked. I’d image that just about any biscuit recipe could be used here. I really liked the idea of this recipe and plan to experiment with it some more.

Blueberry Pizza

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blueberry_pizzaCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

Sorry for the pictures. I made this cake while vacationing with my family, and I was eager to cut into it, so the picture taking took a backseat.

I really, really wanted to like this recipe. It is unique and lends itself to all sorts of variations. For example, the original recipe calls for blueberries, but I used a mixture of blueberries, raspberries and sweet cherries. Just about any fruit would work here, as long as it isn’t too wet.

The “pizza” part of this recipe is a yeasted sweet dough that contains approximately 20 pounds of butter. Okay, so maybe not 20 pounds, but a lot of butter. You get the idea. The dough is left in the refrigerator overnight, so the butter firms up and the dough is manageable.

The next day, the dough is rolled out, left to rise slightly, topped with vanilla pastry cream, fruit, and streusel, and baked, like a pizza. While most of the people who tried the pizza liked it, I didn’t. There wasn’t any textural contrast between the topping and the dough; it was all very soft. Making sure the streusel is crisp would have helped here, but the oven I was working with kept burning the bottoms of things before the tops ever got done. Stupid oven.

Anyway, I’m filing this idea away. I think there are some really great possibilities here.

Chocolate Chocolate Streusel Squares

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Choc_streusel_squaresCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

My next cookbook is going to have to be a diet cookbook. Or a cookbook of vegetables only. Ugh. Two bites of this cake pretty much sent me over the edge. It is rich, heavy and very, very chocolatey. Don’t even try to eat it without milk. Consider yourself warned.

This is a chocolate sour cream cake topped with a chocolate streusel. Did I mention there was some chocolate in it? I actually found the streusel to be over the top and ended up picking most of it off on the square I ate. I actually think the toasted coconut streusel (from the pineapple squares recipe) would be a much better choice here. The combination of the chocolate streusel and the chocolate cake was just too much for me.

On to the cake. It is an easy recipe to whip up; no complaints there. The cake batter starts out by melting butter and unsweetened chocolate together. Then, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, and vanilla are slowly added to whipped eggs, along with the butter/chocolate mixture. The dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, etc) are added alternately with sour cream. The batter is topped off with the streusel and the whole thing bakes for about 30 minutes.

The finished cake does have a heavy tang from the sour cream, which some people may not like. Cutting down the sour cream or replacing some of it with yogurt could help. Some of my tasters thought the cake was a little dry, but that’s likely because I might have overcooked it. Some of my tasters also thought they were eating brownies, but that’s a whole other story.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

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pb_banana_muffins1Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

Peanut butter. Bananas. Chocolate chips. What’s not to like? Even without the bacon, Elvis would be inhaling these. I almost did, except I had already inhaled a batch of the banana oatmeal muffins that I had baked earlier in the day. Needless to say, the scale doesn’t like me much right now.

But back to these muffins. This might just be the recipe that redeems Walter’s book. The batter came together easily, with no overly complicated instructions. After creaming the peanut butter and butter together, sugar and an egg is added to the mixture. Then, mashed bananas and yogurt is alternately mixed in with the dry ingredients. To finish off the batter, chopped Spanish peanuts and mini chocolate chips are stirred in.

These muffins baked up nicely domed tops. The crunch of the peanuts added a nice texture to the muffins. The peanut butter wasn’t overpowering, but went well with the bananas.

In a moment of supreme self-sacrifice, I sent all of these muffins to work with Bryan. I’m totally regretting not keeping one (or three) for myself. Fortunately, I have two very ripe bananas still sitting on my counter . . .

Pineapple Squares with Toasted Coconut Streusel

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pineapple_coconut_squaresCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

These were good. Not spectacular, but darn tasty. The cake was moist and tender, but I would have liked more of a pineapple flavor. The coconut streusel is the standout here. It added just the right crunch and kept the cake from being ordinary and a bit boring.

The streusel recipe combines toasted coconut with flour, powdered sugar, melted butter and orange and lemon peel. The cake is a basic sour cream coffee cake recipe, with crushed pineapple added. True to form, Walter throws in some extra steps, such as taking 5 minutes to add 2/3 of a cup of sugar to the butter while it is being beaten and whipping egg whites which get folded into the batter at the end. I also ended up dirtying just about every bowl I have, including my food processor (to finely chop the crushed pineapple), my stand mixer (to mix the batter) and my handheld mixer (to whip the egg whites).

Blueberry Corn Muffins

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corn_bberry_muffinCurrently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

I liked the idea of these muffins. I didn’t really like the muffins themselves, but I think that’s because I underbaked them slightly and they were pretty wet in the middle.

The recipe is pretty straight forward. The only step I had problems with was that Walter has you chop about half the berries in a food processor. I found it annoying to have to dirty my food processor for a half of a cup of berries and will probably skip that step if I make these again.