Any Fruit Coffee Cake

As I have mentioned, Amanda and Mark had this fabulous idea to have a dessert bar instead of just a wedding cake. They accomplished this with a little help from friends and loved ones!

Because we adore them, many of us agreed to pitch in and make a couple of the tried-and-true family recipes that they had chosen for the day. I love that they wanted their families and friends represented in their desserts!

Aside from their wedding cake and the German Chocolate cake, I also made a delightful blueberry coffee cake. As the name of the recipe suggests, this can be made with any fruit (although the recipe does give some suggestions).

You will need:

4 cups of fruit

(chopped apples, apricots, peaches, blackberries, blueberries)

1 cup water

2 TBSP lemon juice

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

3 cups flour

(I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose flour)

1 cup sugar

1 TBSP baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground mace

1 cup butter or margarine

(I used Earth Balance)

2 slightly beaten eggs

(I used EnerG Egg Replacer)

1 cup milk

(I used almond milk, because that's what I had on hand)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a saucepan, combine your fruit and the water. Simmer it, covered, for about 5 minutes or until the fruit is tender. Stir in the lemon juice. 

Mix together the cornstarch and sugar and stir into the fruit mixture. Cook and stir until thinckened and bubbly. Remove from the heat and let cool.

In a mixing bowl, stir together the 3 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and mace. Cut in the 1 cup of Earth Balance until it gets crumbly and is fully incorporated. 

In a separate bowl, combine Egg Replacer, milk and vanilla. Add it to the flour mixture and mix until blended.

Spread half of the batter into a greased 9x13" pan. Spoon the cooled fruit mixture over the batter and spread it out to the edges. Spoon the remaining batter into small mounds over the fruit mixture and spread out as much as possible. 

Combine the 1/2 cup of sugar and the 1/2 cup of flour and cut in the 1/4 cup of Earth Balance until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the nuts (if using), and sprinkle the mixture over the batter in the pan.

Place the pan on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until the cake tests done. You'll want to use the cookie sheet so you don't get fruit goo all over your oven when this bakes and bubbles over...trust me on this one.

As I said, I made this with blueberries but this time of year it would be wonderful with rhubarb and strawberries.