Mandy's Bytes: Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

First of all I have to confess that I didn't actually make this recipe recently, I made it a few months ago. However, due to the fact that my baking plans for today are to make more S'mores Bars, and since I happened to take pictures of this cake when I made it, it seemed like a decent substitute for fresh bakes.

 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (Recipe from Cooks.com)

- 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
- 1 c. sugar
- 1/2 c. butter
- 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c. milk
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 c. raspberry preserves (or any type)
- Powdered sugar

As always the first step is to preheat your oven, this cake bakes at 350 degrees. Then, ladies and gentlemen, start your mixers! Beat together the cream cheese, sugar and butter until it's fluffy, preferably fluffy ala Agnes from Despicable Me.

After the mixture is the proper fluffiness, add about half the flour, the eggs, milk, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla and salt and commence the mixing. After about 2 minutes it should all be well blended. Then you can add the rest of the flour, you can tell it you saved the best for last so it won't get it's feelings hurt. Do the rest of the beating on low, to avoid giant flour puffs, until it's entirely mixed.

Get a 13x9 inch pan all greased up. I like to use the cooking spray made with flour for baking, so much easier than the "shake some flour around a buttered pan" method (better known as "making a huge mess"). Once the pan is ready spread the mix evenly throughout.

Now in the original recipe the next step tells you to spoon the preserves on top of the mixture in "dollops" before using a kinfe to create a marbled look. I found it worked a lot better to a piping bag (aka a zip lock sans one corner) to make stripes across the top of the cake and then marbled them with a knife. I substituted boysenberry preserves for the raspberry, and you can use whatever you like best. Whichever suits your fancy, it will still be delicious. I'd like to mention here that next time I make this cake I will be adding stripes of a cream cheese concoction in addition to the preserves, if you wanted to try it I would estimate a 3oz package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla whipped together should do the trick.

After your preserves are marbled to perfection, stick this puppy in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes. You can test it just like any other cake with a toothpick or raw spaghetti noodle to see if it comes out clean, just don't stick it in a spot with preserves. Let it cool for a few minutes and then sift the powdered sugar over the top, cut it up, and enjoy!