saturday morning filled coffee cake

The husband and I woke up early this morning. When I looked outside and saw cloudy skies and wet pavement I decided something warm and buttery would be perfect for breakfast. The husband is from a small north-eastern town in Montana. When we were in college at the University of Montana in Missoula we would often make weekend trips to his hometown to visit his parents. We would often wake up on Saturday mornings at his parent's house to the smells of cinnamon and butter. This was enough to drag us out of bed so we could enjoy the fresh out of the oven coffee cake made by his sweet mom. So this morning the idea of coffee cake got into my head and I decided to make my mother-in-law's recipe with a few tweaks. Here it is. Enjoy.

Filled Coffee Cake (adapted from my mother-in-law's recipe):

the cake:

1 1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 sugar

1/2 buttermilk

1/2 unsalted butter (at room temp)

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

the filling and topping:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temp)

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)

2 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350º.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the egg, buttermilk and vanilla until incorporated. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix until just incorporated.

To make the filling and topping hand mix the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and flour until you have course crumbs and clumps.  Add the chopped nuts and hand mix until just incorporated into the crumbles.

Layer half of the cake batter in an 8x8 buttered pan. Sprinkle a little less than half of the topping and then layer with the rest of the batter. Sprinkle the rest of the crumb topping on top of the cake. Bake for 30-35 minutes.