Sunday, May 18, 2008

Sourdough Strawberry/Cheese Coffeecake


I suppose a recipe might have helped with this-but I couldn't find one. Anywhere. To me, a coffee cake with sourdough seems like a natural, but all I could find were cakes that were either un-risen (with a bit of the toss-off included for flavour) or actual cakes (usually chocolate or carrot). I improvised, and though the dough was somewhat slack (and I couldn't really form it into anything pretty) it did come together. The filling was an adaptation of some horrible cheese "Danish" made with crescent rolls from a tube. The filling worked OK, and I had a last jar of preserves that were nearing the end of their shelf life. This did make a whole heck of a lot of coffee cake. I mean, the photo does not really reflect how massive this thing is. I'm going to freeze half to see how it holds up.

You Will Need:

1 cup fed sourdough starter
3-4 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup whole milk
1-teaspoon salt
¼ cup unsalted butter
1-tablespoon sugar
1-tablespoon honey
2 eggs

For The topping:

1-cup strawberry preserves+ 1-tablespoon cornstarch
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
½ cup cottage cheese
½ cup powdered sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 egg with 1-tablespoon water for wash

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
Enough water to make a thick, but pourable glaze


Heat milk, butter, sugar, and honey in a saucepan until warmed and butter is just melted. Cool to lukewarm

In a large bowl, dissolve the starter in the milk mixture and beat in two eggs. Add 2 cups of the flour and beat at low speed with a mixer for half a minute, scraping sides. Then, beat on high for three minutes. By hand, mix in the rest of the flour until you have moderately stiff dough. Place in a buttered bowl and let rise until doubled. This can take anywhere from 2-3 hours as sourdough rises slower than yeast.

When doubled, punch down and let rest ten minutes. Lightly butter a large baking sheet. Roll the dough into a rectangle and transfer to the sheet. Make the filling as follows:

In a small bowl, mix the preserves with 1-tablespoon cornstarch and mix until smooth. In another bowl, mix the cream cheese, cottage cheese, powdered sugar, eggs and cornstarch. Mix until smooth and light.

Top the dough with alternating stripes of cheese and preserves. Cover lightly with waxed paper and let rise again-30-40 minutes or until light.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Before baking, brush the edges of dough with egg wash for colour. With rack in centre position, bake the coffeecake for 20 minutes and then rotate pan. Bake another 10-20 minutes or until cheese is baked through and centre of cake seems done.

Remove from pan and place on a large cooling rack. Place rack over a baking sheet. Pour glaze over still warm cake and then cool completely before serving.

Feeds, many, many, hungry coffee-klatchers.

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