Very Berry Easter Sunrise Coffee Cake

My kitchen is like a scene from the Food Channel's show Chopped. This is the show where four chefs are given a picnic basket with varied ingredients and thirty minutes to create a gourmet dish. My creations are not exactly gourmet but they do taste good for the most part. There have been some memorable disasters but let's leave those for another discussion. Meal preparation is usually opening the cupboards, freezer and fridge to see what I have and then creating something from the ingredients there. Whatever I have been doing over the years must be working since I have developed a reputation for being a good cook. With that reputation come responsibilities or should I say, you get volunteered. Last Easter I was volunteered to make a coffee cake for our church sunrise breakfast. I had never done a coffee cake before.

True to my cooking mantra I left the preparation and baking to the last minute. Since I had never done a coffee cake before I took out The Mennonite Church Cookbook which I bought almost forty years ago when we lived in Iowa. This is my favorite cookbook. This cookbook is filled with good old fashioned country cooking recipes from people who cooked like me, with whatever was available.

I found a recipe and started to collect what I needed. What I did not have was enough sour cream. The recipe called for one cup and I barely had a half cup. My substitution was a container of peach yogurt. The other changes were to use nutmeg in place of cinnamon since I do not like the taste of cinnamon. Next I added a bag of mixed berry fruit filling instead of the fresh fruit the original recipe called for. It all worked and the coffee cake tasted great. The next time I made this coffee cake I used banana yogurt since that is what I had and it was as good as the peach. This is a heavy coffee cake and serves quite a few people.

Here's how to make this delicious coffee cake.

½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs beaten
1 tbs. Vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 tbs. baking soda
½ cup sour cream
1- 6oz. Container of any peach yogurt
One tsp. nutmeg
½ cups frozen mixed berries, slightly thawed.

Note- you can substitute fat free sour cream and yogurt along with margarine to make this an almost fat free coffee cake. I have not tried it with egg beaters.

Preheat ovens to 375.

Thoroughly mix all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl lightly beat eggs and butter together, add vanilla, sour cream, and yogurt, and mix well. Then slowly add the dry ingredient mixture until all is blended into a consistent batter. I believe in tasting the batter at this point, so taste it and make sure you like the way it tastes. You can add a little more sugar or vanilla if your tastes call for it.

Pour ½ of the batter into a greased and floured 9" round cake pan. Sprinkle nutmeg over this layer and use a knife to swirl it into the batter. Spread the berries on top of this layer and cover with remaining batter.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes at 375 degrees.