Gluten Free Brown Sugar Coffee Cake Recipe

Thank you to all for your good wishes (to my alter ego Daryl Wood Gerber) regarding the Agatha Award nomination for best short story in  FISH TALES. She is (I am) very excited.

And congratulations to all the others on our blog with nominations: Krista for best novel and best short story and Lucy for best short story. We're having a ball writing, aren't we?!!!

Thank you, too, to all the readers who bought Clobbered by Camembert. It's been out a week and has done very well on the national scale. I'm thrilled (and so are the characters in the book...they get to have more tales.)

And now...

Do you love brown sugar? I do. It's like syrup (and/or bacon, depending on your mood). It makes everything taste better. It's a comfort food. I know I shouldn't over-indulge in refined sugar, but truly, I need to have my sweets. [This might be a gluten-free girl thing. We don't get very many carbs on a regular basis, so those sweets...]  Whenever I'm writing, around 10:30 in the morning, I need a "fix" of sweets and a cup of coffee. It takes me to the next level and tides me over until lunch.  [By the way, just checked out this phrase to make sure I was right. A site says: The idea is that of the swelling tide, which will carry you over some obstacle, with the implication that it won’t require effort on your part.]

Back to sweets.  One of my favorite all-time coffee cakes is a Bisquick coffee cake [on the box]. I remember a time when I was, well, (breathing deeply) anorexic. Before it was "chic." It was a real problem and one that my parents didn't know how to address (nor did I; I was 14 and struggling with emotional issues, Type A issues, and a sister who was going astray issues). I stopped eating for about 2 months, other than the basics: a piece of white fish (yeah, I like white fish), a cup of tea, a piece of toast, a frozen malted for lunch (because I could buy those at school and they cooled me down).  Terrible diet!!! I know!!! But I didn't know what else to do, and nobody knew I was doing this. Let's just say some people were having their own issues.

Anyway, I was at my dad's house (yep, product of divorce but my parents were both good people and raised me right) and Dad had made a Bisquick coffee cake. I woke up, inhaled the aroma, and wow! He and my stepmother were out gardening, so I sat down at the table and started to read the comics and do a crossword puzzle--still two of my favorite pastimes. At the same time, I nibbled. By the end, I ate the whole 9x9 coffee cake and a drank a quart of milk. I didn't realize I had. Honestly. My dad and stepmom came into the house and jumped with joy. I was eating again!

Thus sprouted my great love of sweets. Comfort foods. [I've learned a little self-discipline since them. After all, I am a Type A. Argh!]

But brown sugar is the key. It's not just any sweet. Brown sugar is key for me.

Now, I can't use Bisquick any longer, and though Bisquick makes a gluten-free mix (which is great), I wanted to tweak. You know me. :)

So here it is. My mishmash of a great coffee cake adding ricotta cheese and bananas. Oh, wow. The extra moistness is super.

BANANA BROWN SUGAR

RICOTTA CHEESE

COFFEE CAKE

(Gluten-free)

Ingredients:

2 cups mixed gluten-free flours (*tapioca starch, potato starch, sweet rice flour - your choice)

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp. gluten-free vanilla

2/3 cup butter, melted

2 eggs, large

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 tsp. cider vinegar

Filling:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 banana, peeled and sliced

1 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:

 

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the filling ingredients of sugar, banana and cinnamon, and set aside.

For the batter:  Mix melted butter and sugar and vanilla.  Add eggs and beat on low.  Still beating on low, add ricotta cheese and vinegar.  Then add flours, baking powder and xanthan gum.

Spoon half of the batter into a greased loaf pan.  Layer all of the brown sugar-banana filling on top of that.  Spread the rest of the batter over the filling. Cut the batter with a knife, in a swirling fashion.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, when inserted a toothpick comes out clean.  When cool, remove the cake from the pan and sprinkle with a generous amount of brown sugar.  [You could serve with whipped cream, ice cream, or more of the banana and brown sugar mixture.]

By the way, if you know (or suspect) any of your loved ones are anorexic, please check out this site. You could be saving a life!

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