Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: banana-date brown sugar cream cheese coffee cake

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Banana-Date Coffee Cake from author @DarylWoodGerber

From Daryl aka Avery:

Congratulations to Krista and Sheila on their new releases!

In honor of the cyber tea party Krista held yesterday - SO MUCH FUN! - I decided to make myself a little tea plate that I could enjoy while e-chatting with her fans. This simple little dessert was the perfect addition to the afternoon. I have often made a banana coffee cake, using raisins in the filling, but I was all out. However, one of my favorite "breads" at Christmas is a date bread. I thought, hmmm, I bet dates would be good in this coffee cake.

And they are. By tonight, the verb might be "were". I am finding it hard to resist eating the rest of it. I must put my fingers to work and get cracking on my next book.

Enjoy!

Look below the recipe for some fun news from me.

BANANA-DATE BROWN SUGAR

CREAM CHEESE

COFFEE CAKE

(Gluten-free*)

Ingredients:

2/3 cup butter, melted

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp. vanillin (you may use real vanilla if you have no reaction to it)

2 eggs, large

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 tsp. cider vinegar

2 cups gluten-free flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon xanthan gum

Filling:

1/2 cup chopped dates, pre-soaked

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 bananas, peeled and sliced

1 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9 x 9 pan or line with parchment paper.

Soak the “filling” raisins in ½ cup hot water and set aside.

For the batter: In a large bowl, mix melted butter and sugar and vanillin (or vanilla). Add eggs and beat on low. Still beating on low, add cream cheese and vinegar. Then add the gluten-free flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and xanthan gum and stir until thoroughly mixed.

For the filling: drain raisins. In a small bowl, mix raisins with the bananas, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Spoon half of the batter into prepared pan. Pat down with your fingers. This is the fun part – like working with play dough. Layer all of the filling on top of that. Spread the rest of the batter over the filling. Again, pat down with your fingers.

Mix the topping ingredients and sprinkle topping all over the coffee cake.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until nicely browned.

Let cool for 20 minutes and remove from the pan. Serve warm or room temperature.

If you want to make this with regular flour, just sub out regular flour with the gluten-free flour and omit the xanthan gum. Same baking time!

NOW FOR THE NEWS.

FINAL SENTENCE is on sale for $1.99 - e-book!! This is to generate sales, I'm sure, for GRILLING THE SUBJECT. So if you haven't read the Cookbook Nook series, you can get the very first book for a steal!

Here are links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1X8HNzn

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1Uco1ky

Kobo: http://bit.ly/1rbx617

BAM: http://bit.ly/1t5lk9K

Coulnd’t figure out how to do link for iBooks - sorry

NEXT NEWS

I've revised my website a bit. Are you part of my fan club? There are fun puzzles, special pictures, tidbits, and giveaways. Do you get my newsletter? Sign up today so you don't miss out in the future. I won't inundate you with mail. I'll just share announcements when special things are happening, like the release of my books. The next? GRILLING THE SUBJECT, August 2016.