Raspberry Almond Coffee Cake

Name: Raspberry Almond Coffee Cake
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 80 min
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar; 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted, chopped; 6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes; Nonstick vegetable oil spray; 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tablespoon cornmeal; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt; 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided; 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; 2 large eggs; 1 cup buttermilk; 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon; 2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen will work)

Published: May 14, 2013 · Modified: May 30, 2019 · by Jess · 791 words. · About 4 minutes to read this article. · 35 Comments

Before this coffee cake, I thought that I wasn’t really a coffee cake person. It’s not that I dislike it – I mean, who doesn’t like cake for breakfast? There were just so many things I would like to have for breakfast even more. But Frank and I have fallen into a tea routine – we both drink tea like it’s going out of style. It was with all this tea drinking that made me want a cake like this one – with a light, sweet base that hints of cinnamon, tart fruit, and crumbly topping piled high.

It’s called a “coffee” cake, but it’s perfect with tea. With the sweet/sour flavor of the raspberries and the crunch of almond in the topping, I couldn’t get enough of it.

I loved it thinly sliced with fruit on the side for breakfast, but we found ourselves sneaking oddly shaped slivers of this cake for nearly a week. It got better every day.

I’ve been thinking lately about how important it is to surprise ourselves from time to time. I gravitate so much towards routines, but it’s when I break out of them that things get interesting.

Having lived in Bangkok for two and a half years now, there’s hardly as much surprise on a daily basis as there was in the beginning. Anyone who has traveled knows that unique combination of exhaustion and energy that comes from an environment in which every sight, smell and experience is new. For the first months in Bangkok, every day surprised me.

These days, some things about Bangkok feel very familiar. Much of my life has been surrendered to routine. But from time to time I manage to surprise myself. I have a conversation with a taxi driver or order a bowl of noodles in just exactly the way I like it or I gat caught in a rainstorm while the whole city gets painted streaky shades of green.

This is the part of the expat experience that is most thrilling. Because when you’ve live in a place that is so very different from “home”, you are both satisfied when you get to know it well and continually amazed by its foreignness. Most moments are shinier somehow.

It feels a bit like summer camp – the stories you’ll tell for years about snakes in bunkhouses and staying up all night under the stars that only the handful of people who were there can ever really “get”.

Maybe that’s how I should start to think about life in Bangkok. Extended summer camp. With longer work days and fewer snakes.

Simultaneously a break from real life, and real life personified.

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