Coconut Lime Coffee Cake

Hi! My name is Maria, and I’m thrilled to be guest blogging on BHG Delish Dish today! You can normally find me over at Sift & Whisk, blogging about from-scratch dessert and baking. I love taking classic recipes and adding my own flair to them and using fresh, seasonal ingredients. Unfortunately, there isn’t much produce in season in my home state of Ohio right now! While I twiddle my thumbs waiting for rhubarb to hit the farmers’ markets, I’ve been all about citrus. So when I came across this Lemon-Raspberry Coffeecake recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, I had to make it my own. Luckily for me, a friend had given me a bag of limes leftover from a weekend of margarita-making. And what do you do with limes? Duh, you listen to Harry Nilsson and put the lime in the coconut! The original recipe calls for buttermilk, but I used coconut milk in its place. The acid in the buttermilk reacts with baking soda to leaven the original cake, so to make up for that acid, I had to “curdle” the coconut milk with a tablespoon of lime juice to get the same chemical reaction. Baking science is the most delicious kind of science. I used lime zest in place of the lemon and added it to the cake batter, not just the cheesecake filling. Wait, you didn’t know this thing had a cheesecake filling? Because it’s pretty amazing. I’ll admit that I was worried that the center would be gooey like stuffed French toast. Instead, the cream cheese layer melts into the cake, making it ultra moist. Dry coffee cake is the most heinous crime against brunch, after all. My original plan was to use frozen blackberries on top of the cake, but that reminded me that my blackberry bush will be barren for several more months, and it just made me too heartbroken. I’m a sucker for a good streusel topping, though. Enter my toasted coconut streusel. It’s super easy to whip up: just mix ½ cup of toasted coconut, 3 tablespoons of flour, and 2 tablespoons of sugar into a small bowl, then add in 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Set the mixture in the refrigerator while you finish prepping the rest of the cake. When the cake has been in the oven for 20 minutes, sprinkle the streusel over the top and finishing baking the cake. The thing I love most about this recipe is that it is supposed to be served warm. Everyone knows the worst part about baking anything, especially cake, is waiting for the thing to cool. But there’s no need with coffee cake. Coffee cake understands that you need your morning sugar rush on. the. double. I foresee this coffee cake making a repeat appearance at our Sunday brunch table and adapting as the seasons change. Once the blackberries ripen in my backyard, you can bet I’ll be plopping them on top!