The coffee cake of blizzard proportions.

What else are you going to do during a blizzard, but bake? I’m sure you can think of a few other things to keep yourself occupied, but after a few loads of laundry, some Doctor Who episodes, and snuggle time with my guy…baking was on the agenda! My waistline may not approve, but my mouth was doing a dance of sweet surrender. Yep, it was that good. As good as I remember too.

Being gluten free has put some damper on some of my favorite childhood recipes. Like coffee cake, or crumb cake. I remember as a child my mom would make the original Betty Crocker, Bisquick Velvet Crumb Cake. Oh the memories. But not until Bisquick came out with their gluten free mix did I think it would be possible to relive those memories just by a simple fork bite of pure bliss.

It is possible!

There are a few versions of the classic coffee cake and also the velvet crumb cake recipes circulating the internet these days. But I’ve got my hands on an original. Well sort of. See my mom likes to keep recipes she loves. Either from the back of a box, a newspaper clipping, or her ever faithful Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from 1963. The pages are splattered, tattered, and torn. They have a plethora of useful information that even the best of internet searches don’t hold a candle to. In my opinion that is. Moms original back of the box recipe has a little coupon to redeem items from the Betty Crocker Store. The coupon expired in August 1983. This is oldschool fo sure!

The following recipe takes elements from two Bisquick cake recipes to create this blissfully moist crumb coffee cake. It can be used with original Bisquick or the Gluten Free version I used.

GLUTEN FREE APPLE STREUSEL SOUR CREAM CRUMB COFFEE CAKE

Cake

• 2 cups Gluten Free Bisquick baking mix
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs sour cream
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup of milk or water (I prefer milk)
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 tbs ground cinnamon

Apple filling

• 2 medium apples peeled and thinly sliced (I used Gala apples)
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 pinch of nutmeg

Struesel topping

• 1 1/3 cup Gluten Free Bisquick
• 1/2 cup cold butter
• 1 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

Prepare the apple filling by peeling, coring, and slicing them as thin as possible. Place apple slices in a bowl and add in the lemon juice, cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Mix well and set aside.

In small bowl, prepare the struesel topping by mixing Bisquick, brown sugar, and cinnamon together. Cut in butter until crumbly and set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 ° degrees, and grease a 8×8 square pan.

Combine all cake ingredients in a large bowl using a wire wisk and beat vigorously for one minute until batter is smooth. Pour half the batter into the greased pan, cover the batter with half the struesel topping. Layer the apple filling, and cover with remaining cake batter. Top the cake with remaining struesel topping.

Place in preheated oven and bake at 375° degrees for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Oven temperatures may vary so check at the 30 minute mark.

Remove from oven and cool at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or cold. I prefer my cakes cold but this tastes lovely at either temperature. Store remaining cake in its original baking pan, covered with aluminum foil or plastic wrap, in the refrigerator.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as David and I did over this past weekend during Blizzard Juno. It certainly warmed us up on a cold winters night, and brought back fond memories of my childhood.