This is not your usual sour cream coffee cake - Triple Buckwheat Coffee Cake with Apricot Miso Jam ...

... and my September Round-Up

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This week I finally finished the first part of a large project of mine after months and months of intense work (and probably many years of stewing on the initial idea). Finishing large projects can feel strangely anti-climactic, probably because of the immediate void they tend to leave. To pre-empt this I took myself out for a rare solo lunch to celebrate and bought myself the new book Comfort from Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Tara Wigley and Verena Lochmuller as a treat. Although in fairness, between a busy day job, looking after a toddler, realising that we should probably start prepping for the arrival of Baby 2, and a work trip to San Francisco next week, there isn’t really much of a void to fall into.

Before I spend next week living out of a suitcase and trying my best to return to old San Francisco favourites and check out some new places in between various work events, I decided I wanted to get a headstart on some fall baking, starting with this Triple Buckwheat Coffee Cake with Apricot Miso Jam. 

Growing up in Germany, US style coffee cakes were not a thing. But crumble topped cakes definitely were. And so the idea of a sour cream enriched cake batter that bakes up into a beautifully velvety and plush cake crumb hiding underneath a coat of buttery crumble immediately appealed to me.

There are of course many iterations of coffee cakes, some fairly plain, others heavily spiced and many hiding a layer of jam or fresh fruit underneath the crumble topping. For today’s recipe I decided to try and really showcase the nutty flavour of buckwheat flour.  Since buckwheat flour is gluten-free it cannot be swapped in 1:1 in recipes that rely on gluten for structure, e.g. recipes for bread in particular. However, you can swap a small amount of all purpose flour for buckwheat flour if you are simply after buckwheat’s nutty flavour. It’s something I have been doing for years when baking sourdough bread and it works equally well in cakes and cookies. 

This is a triple buckwheat coffee cake because buckwheat flour is really the star of the show. It finds its way not just into the cake batter itself, but also into a deliciously nutty and cinnamon-laced toasted buckwheat flour ribbon running through the velvety cake crumb (see photo above) and the crumble topping itself. What you end up with is a deliciously nutty and complex cake, made even more delicious with some dollops of Apricot Miso Jam hiding underneath the crumble topping.

The Apricot Miso Jam is based on a 12(!) year old Bon Appetit recipe which I have made many many times over the years. In part because the jam is as tasty on a bowl of porridge or Greek yoghurt, on some buttered toast, served as part of a cheeseboard or as the fruit layer in a coffee cake as I have done here. It also is simply a genius recipe turning pantry items like a bag of dried apricots, dried cherries, some cinnamon bark, bayleaf, star anise, citrus juice and sake plus a heaping spoon of miso and not that much else into a delicious compote-jam-chutney hybrid (no added sugar required). Over the years I have pared back the ingredient list a fair bit and that is the version I have shared below.

Have you ever baked with buckwheat flour before? If so, what is your favourite thing to bake with buckwheat flour? Let me know in the comments below!

Before we get to the recipe for this perfect coffee cake for the beginning of fall, below is my September recap.

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September Round-Up

Reading: There was a lot of great stuff to be read on Substack this month. Nik Sharma wrote about the challenge of naming recipes (I’m definitely guilty of trying to squeeze all the key ingredients into a recipe title); Dianne Jacob spoke about how to make space for writing (and how helpful coaches can be in that regard - quick shout-out to my own coach Gilly Smith, working with her for just a few short months so far has already been nothing short of transformative!); and Olga Koutseridi wrote a post about shitty cookbooks which stirred up quite the debate. Next on my reading list is (aside from the impossible task of staying on top of all the Substacks I subscribe to), predictably, Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo which I plan to read during my flight to San Francisco next week. 

Eating / Cooking / Baking: After my long summer of bedrest, September was definitely the month for catching up with friends outside the apartment and I enjoyed lots of delicious brunches, and long chats over coffee and cake. I also started playing around in the kitchen a bit more again. Inspired by Hetty McKinnon, I made a dumpling salad one day - featuring gyoza, tomatoes, kimchi, lots of spring onions, and a black vinegar and chili crisp dressing. I also enjoyed playing around with a sort of deconstructed Turkish Manti dish - inspired by Diana Henry - featuring broken lasagna sheets, spiced mince, garlicky yoghurt and a paprika butter. The dish needs some further work but attempt number one was already very delicious. There was also a lot of baking, including two gloriously delicious babkas I made earlier this week at a baking workshop run by my friend Jonathan from The Baking Club here in Brussels. Also, this stunning Bay Leaf and Brown Sugar Rice Pudding with Roasted Plums from Allegra d’Agostini is definitely on my list of things to make!

Drinking: Just before the temperatures started dipping for good I made the most of the still somewhat warmer temps to make another batch of Tepache. I think I have talked about Tepache before but it really is one of my favourite zero waste recipes. I have made Tepache countless times over the years and still cannot believe that you can turn some pineapple peels (which in the past I would have simply tossed in the bin without giving it some further thought), some brown sugar and some spices, lots of water and a little bit of time (12-24hs) into a delicious soda. If that is not kitchen alchemy then I don’t know what is.

Triple Buckwheat Coffee Cake with Apricot Miso Jam

A simple sour cream enriched coffee cake with a beautifully plush crumb thanks to the reverse creaming method. After mixing the dry ingredients together you mix in the softened butter before adding the other wet ingredients. This way you end up coating the flour with butter which inhibits gluten formation. As a result it is practically impossible to overbeat the cake batter and you end up with a beautifully tender cake. If you do not have any buckwheat flour, you can replace it with the same amount of all purpose flour. Otherwise you could also use rye flour. The Apricot Miso Jam is delicious and really worth trying out. Alternatively use an equal amount of fresh fruit like plums, figs or apples for example or your favourite jam.

Ingredients

For the buckwheat crumble

100g all purpose flour
25g buckwheat flour
75g granulated sugar
75g cold butter, cubed
1/4 tsp salt

For the toasted buckwheat flour cinnamon ribbon

1 tbsp buckwheat flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Generous pinch of salt

For the cake

200g all purpose flour
25g buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
75g granulated sugar
50g light brown sugar
110g soft butter
2 eggs
100g sour cream or Greek yoghurt
250g Apricot Miso Jam*

*Apricot Miso Jam (loosely adapted from Bon Appétit): For 1 large or 2 small jam jars (you will have some leftover jam after making this cake) you will need 250g chopped dried apricots, 90ml sake, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 star anise, 1/2 cinnamon stick, 1 bay leaf and 1 generous tbsp white miso. Let the apricots soak in 250ml water for 2h to soften. Place in a medium saucepan together with the spices, sake and lemon juice. Bring to a boil then turn down the heat and simmer for ca. 30 minutes, stirring often, or until the apricots are very soft. If need be, you can periodically add a little extra water. Add the miso and stir to mix in. Continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes to thicken the jam a bit further. Remove the spices. If you want a smoother texture, you can puree it with a stick blender. Note this will make a bit more Apricot Miso Jam than you will need for the recipe. Store the remainder in the fridge and use within 1 week.

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 160 degrees Celsius fan and grease and line a 20x30cm pan with parchment paper.

To make the crumble whisk together the dry ingredients then rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture starts to resemble wet sand. Use your hands to clump the mixture together to form different sized crumbs. Place in the fridge.

For the toasted buckwheat cinnamon swirl toast the buckwheat flour in a small dry pan until golden brown in colour and it starts smelling of toasted cereal. Mix with the brown sugar, cinnamon and pinch of salt. Set aside.

For the cake batter whisk the all purpose flour together with the buckwheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and the two sugars. Add the soft butter and beat with a handheld mixer or the paddle attachment of a stand mixer until there are no more large pieces of butter remaining. Add the eggs and beat to combine. Lastly, add the sour cream and beat for 1 more minute until the batter is smooth.

Spread ca. 1/2 the batter on the bottom of the cake pan. Scatter over the toasted buckwheat and cinnamon mixture. Add the remaining batter in dollops, followed by dollops of the Apricot Miso Jam. Lastly, scatter the buckwheat crumble all over the top of the cake.

Bake for ca. 65 minutes or until the cake is well-risen, the cake layer is a light brown and the crumble topping is golden brown in colour and a wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.