Crunchy, salted and toasted macadamia nuts knock this moist coffee cake recipe out of the park.

I’ve started on a project to collect excellent “base” recipes to which I can easily interchange ingredients. My initial collection includes baked goods such as braided bread, muffins and bagels. With this collection in mind, I opened one of my favorite baking recipe books, The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book, and flipped through it to my go-to focaccia recipe. On my way to that recipe, I was distracted by a delicious-looking macadamia nut coffee cake recipe.

Some of my best side trips have been when I have given in to distraction. This was definitely a worthy side trip! I did adapt the recipe slightly, but it turns out that it perfectly fit my definition of a “base” recipe. Macadamia nuts could be swapped out for other kinds of nuts. Dried fruit could be added or even a thin layer of homemade jam in the middle. Now there’s an idea!

Macadamia Nut Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Topping

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp galangal (or 1/2 tsp ground ginger)
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch salt
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup roasted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch springform pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Make topping. In a small bowl whisk together first four topping ingredients. Rub in butter with your fingers until coarse crumbs form. Set bowl aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together first six cake ingredients.
4. In another medium bowl, mix together yogurt, eggs, oil, and vanilla.
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry. Mix well.
6. Pour half the batter into prepared springform pan.
7. Sprinkle half of topping mixture evenly onto batter.
8. Cover evenly with remaining batter.
9. Sprinkle nuts evenly over top of batter. Press them into batter slightly.
10. Cover with remaining topping.
11. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Top should be golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean.
12. Cool pan on wire rack for 20 minutes.
13. Remove sides of springform pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.