St. Louis chef, baker, and artist Tai Davis has THE a Big Heart Tea Co. recipe for breakfast in fall — Fake Coffee Coffee Cake, an easy, caramel-y coffee cake recipe made with our Fake Coffee tea.
the baker
Chef Tai offers consulting, teaching, and personal chef services under the moniker Æther, with his creative Alchemy Bakery and conceptual food art with Sacred Geometry.
Before Alchemy Bakery, Tai served as executive chef of The Tavern of Fine Arts, staged in kitchens such as Element, The Libertine, Niche, Franco, and The Demun Oyster Bar, and then served as Executive Pastry Chef for The Chocolate Pig Restaurant, during which his work was featured in Sauce, Delta Sky, Feast, E-Squared, Band's Through Town, and Saint Louis Magazine. Most recently, Chef Tai’s pastry skills were showcased on the Food Network Show ‘Halloween Baking Championship.’
What he says about this recipe:
Big Heart Tea’s Fake Coffee won me over the first time I got the opportunity to try it. Everything about it screams comforting and fall, thus I thought it would be the perfect addition to elevate this quick and easy coffee cake recipe.
The chicory adds subtle coffee notes, while the cacao nibs, dandelion root, and cinnamon add a sophisticated earthiness and spice that I absolutely love and hope you do too!
This recipe serves 12 and can be baked in a 10 inch baking pan, or baked in a standard muffin pan for individual servings.
The recipe
Ingredients
Serves 12
You'll need baking pan or muffin tin, 3 mixing bowls, a spoon for mixing, and foil to cover the cake while baking!
Streusel
- 2 tbsp Fake Coffee (or more to taste!)
- 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
Cake
- 1 cup oil of choice
- 3 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup of sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
Steps
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the oil, eggs, sour cream, vanilla, and milk together.
- In a separate bowl, sift together sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Combine egg mixture with flour mixture using your spoon until well mixed. Pour *half *the batter into your lightly greased and floured pan or muffin tin. Set aside both your remaining batter and your poured batter to prepare streusel.
- In a small bowl, prepare streusel by combining brown sugar, Fake Coffee, and butter.
- Sprinkle half of the streusel on top of the poured batter. Then pour the remaining batter over it and finish off by sprinkling the remaining streusel on top.
- Cover with foil and bake at at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until the coffee cake is golden brown.
Enjoy.