A Recipe Exchange: Cream Cheese and Brown Sugar Coffee Cake

Savannah from Savannah's Savory Bites contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to participate in a recipe exchange. Well, I think you all know me well enough to know what the answer was, "YES".

I spent some time with Savannah at her site and I acquired a deep over-taking of feelings for this lady, her hard work, and the amount of time she has to put into her wonderful blog.

When you take the time to visit with Savannah make sure you click on her Hammock Track Tales. Talk about inspiring....I got lost there for over an hour. Seriously! Very nice work!

One thing about a recipe exchange that I love is, I get to go to the recipe blog and pick the recipe I want to create. Is that being selfish? Heavens no! A recipe exchange is an open invitation to take a look around, and grab.....so that's what I did.

Savannah also offers a food blog hop on Fridays. Her blog hops consist of spotlighting specific ingredients, cooking techniques, and sometimes touches on food cultures.

Savannah's Savory Bites is an all-around great blog to visit, follow, and save.

Savannah created this wonderful looking coffee cake, and when I seen the words cream cheese, brown sugar, and coffee cake all in the same title, I knew that this cake is what I want to create in my own kitchen. And this cake is so easy to put together.

It's funny how Savannah mentioned that if she didn't have picky eaters for children, she would have added pecans to the recipe. As I was putting this together I had the exact same thought.....pecans!

I had to show you a picture of what it looks like right out of the oven. My first impression, it looks like a great big cinnamon roll. What do you think?

And as I was shooting my pictures, I noticed how the cream cheese layer and the cake layer are very distinct. It is cake with cheese cake on top. Couldn't ask for anything better.....

I didn't want to change this recipe too much because I wanted to taste it as Savannah tasted it.

Cream Cheese and Brown Sugar Coffee Cake

Cake:

1/2 c. vegetable oil (I used canola)

1 c. sugar (I used 1/2 c. Domino Light)

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. buttermilk

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese (soft)

1 egg

1/2 c. sugar (I used 1/4 c. Domino Light)

1 TBS flour

1 TBS lemon juice

Brown Sugar Filling:

12 TBS (1 stick and a half of one stick) of butter, melted

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 c. dark brown sugar (I used 1/2 c. Splenda brown sugar blend)

1 tsp. cinnamon

To make the cake, combine the sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk in mixer. Mix until smooth. In a small bowl combine the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Pour and mix into wet ingredients in mixer. Mix until smooth. Pour the cake mixture into a greased 13x9 inch pan.

To mix the cream cheese layer, mix the cream cheese ingredients thoroughly, in mixer until smooth. Pour this over the cake layer in pan.

Melt butter. In a medium sized bowl combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Pour butter over dry ingredients and mix well with a fork. Drop this mixture in dollops over the cake batter and cream cheese layer in pan.

Savannah says to use a butter knife to swirl the three layers. I didn't do that part.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 35-40 minutes, or until middle has set.

I also sprinkled mine with a sugar and cinnamon mixture before baking, and sprinkled more after baking.