Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

For some reason, I have been in the mood to cook and bake a lot lately. I guess it's the cold weather.....there isn't really anything else to do but hibernate and eat! I got up this morning in the mood for something sweet to eat with my coffee, so I got out several of my cookbooks and found this recipe.

Speaking of Cookbooks, I think I sort of maybe have an addiction to them....I pick them up at yard sales, the flea market, the Goodwill....anywhere I can find them! I could spend hours looking at the pictures and reading the recipes. I was at a yard sale this past summer, and bought 5 really nice hardcover Cookbooks, one of which was Taste of Home 2006 America's Family Recipes. I paid $1 apiece for these cookbooks, and I have really gotten my money's worth. The recipes are all simple, and use ingredients that you are likely to already have on hand.

So I was browsing through the cookbook, and this coffee cake recipe sort of jumped out at me. It looked really decadent, but pretty simple to assemble, and it baked in 30 minutes.....perfect!

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

FILLING:

8 ounces (1 block) cream cheese softened

3 Tablespoons Powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

CINNAMON-NUT TOPPING:

1/4 Cup Finely Chopped Pecans

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Set batter aside.

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Spoon half of the first batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube or bundt pan. Top with the filling and then the remaining batter. Combine all the topping ingredients; sprinkle over batter.

Bake at 350* for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

This coffee cake turned out great! It was light and very moist and not overly sweet. I've had some coffee cakes that just had way too much sugar. This one is not like that, the cream cheese filling was actually a little tart which I really liked. If you wanted a sweeter filling, you could always add more sugar.

Oh......and I know I shouldn't, but I let Greta lick the bowl.....c'mon, I'm not the only one am I?

She agreed that it was pretty tasty, LOL........

Is her tongue really that long!?!?!......talk about snapping the picture at just the right second!!

Have a great Saturday!