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from "The Best Make-Ahead Recipe," by the editors of Cook's Illustrated
Recipe below found in

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Makes two 9-inch coffeecakes, each serving 6

For streusel:
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup pecans, almonds or walnuts, chopped

For cake:
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sour cream
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

To make streusel:
Using your fingers, mix brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon together in medium bowl until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in nuts and set aside.

To make cake:
Coat two 9-inch cake pans with cooking spray. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in large bowl. In separate bowl, whisk sour cream, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and melted butter together until smooth. Gently whisk egg mixture into flour mixture until batter looks smooth and well combined (do not overmix).Scrape batter into prepared pans and smooth tops. Sprinkle streusel evenly over top of both cakes.

To store:
Wrap pans tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 24 hours or freeze up to 1 month. (Do not thaw frozen cakes before baking.)To bake: Adjust an oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap cakes and bake until tops are golden and toothpick inserted into center comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes if refrigerated, or 40 to 45 minutes if frozen.Let cakes cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before serving.

Lemon-blueberry variation:
Toss 2 cups fresh blueberries (or 1 1/2 cups frozen, thawed, rinsed and dried) with 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour. Follow recipe for coffee cake, stirring 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest into flour mixture and stirring floured berries into finished batter. Bake as directed.

Overall rating of recipe:4 of 5

The recipe was very easy to make and I like the fact that the recipe is already doubled so that you can bake one that day and refrigerate or freeze the second cake for another day. Therefore, we had one cake this weekend and I'll be baking the second one next weekend. The recipe says serving for 6, but one 9" cake could have been extended for 8 to even 10 servings.

I personally wasn't too fond of the taste. There just seemed to be something missing, like apples should have been in the cake, so maybe next time I'll try to put apples in them. However, it was an overall good tasting cake, very moist. DearHubby really liked it and had 3 pieces in one day.

Since I thought there was something missing in the cake, I only rated it a 4. Otherwise, my DearHubby would have probably rated it a 5 since it was very easy to make and he thought it tasted yummy!

OOPS!!! I didn't realize that there is a Lemon-Blueberry version. Perhaps that was the missing ingredient(s) I was looking for. I'll need to give that version a try next time