Lemon Raspberry Coffee Cake

Grammy asked me to make this when she saw the recipe in Better Homes & Gardens. I love her and so of course, I did.

Lemon Raspberry Coffeecake
Better Homes & Gardens magazine

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon lemon peel, finely shredded
1 egg
1/2 to 1 cup raspberries, depending on preference
powdered sugar (optional, for sprinkling)

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare 9 inch round pan.

Mix dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Mix 1 cup sugar with butter until combined. Add 1 egg and vanilla. Beat on low-medium until combined. Add flour mixture then buttermilk, alternately, mixing until combined after each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese and remaining 1/4 cup sugar, until combined. Add lemon peel and 1 egg, beating until combined.

Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan, spreading to the edges. Then, pour the cream cheese mixture on the batter, spreading to edges, before covering with the rest of the batter. Try your best not to mix the batter and cream cheese layers. (I was unsuccessful at this which made the coffeecake bake a little unevenly.)

Bake 20 minutes or until puffed up a little and remove from oven in order to press raspberries into cake. Bake an additional 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean after inserting it into the middle. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack before removing it from the pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.

Pour a cup of coffee (or hot chocolate) on a lazy Saturday morning and dig in.


This post is linked up to some of the parties listed under my Show & Tell tab at the top of the page. 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Am I going crazy? I seem to distinctly recall posting a short and sweet blurb about the DIY onesie I made to match the itty bitty baby booties I gave as a baby shower gift....And now, it is not my most recent post, or even saved as a draft. Possibly due to Blogger's outage on Thursday, where every time I tried to login to post something new, it said there was an error...Sad stuff. I'll have to try and do it all up again. Did this happen to anyone else?

Until then, check these cupcakes out. From my Betty Crocker Simply Desserts recipe book I've been trying to get through, I made the Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes. Only, as usual, I didn't quite have all the required ingredients, namely strawberry jam, so I substituted my homemade raspberry jam from last summer's berry season.

These would look even yummier if it had a little raspberry sauce drizzled over the top, huh?

More or less, here's how they go:

Make your cupcake batter and fill the cupcakes no more than half full.

I used my jumbo cupcake tin.

Add a small cube of cream cheese to the middle, but do not push it deep into the batter.

Then, add a small dollop (a teaspoon will do) of whatever jam you desire have on hand onto the cream cheese.

Finally, cover filling with a generous spoonful of cupcake batter. Try not to over do this, as the cream cheese/raspberry filling will sink to the bottom, like this:

Not like looks have any affect on taste in this case, but if you're concerned about presentation, it make take a tweak or two of additional cupcakes to not have the filling sink to the bottom. I wasn't too concerned to make another batch and figure it out gravity's work in baking as I was to eat and share these, as they were just for fun.

Add a little cream cheese frosting piped out of a cute frosting tip zip lock bag and voila!

Tip: These are best eaten fresh out of the oven when they are still warm because of the jam/cream cheese center or you can warm them up for a few seconds in the microwave.