I often make a cake on the weekend and somewhere in the past I had a recipe for a Cinnamon Coffee Cake. My mother used to buy a Coffee Cake to have when her friends would drop in for coffee - hence the name and coffee is not an actual ingredient!
Coffee Cakes of my childhood often had a sort of crumbly cinnamon layer on top however this one is a pretty good example of a great cake to have a slice with a cup of coffee.
This recipe called for buttermilk and I didn't have any in the fridge. I know you can add lemon juice to milk to sour it but I just had to have the leftover sourdough starter after I refreshed some for the forthcoming week. I added this along with some milk to the recipe instead of the buttermilk as an experiment and it really worked out well.
Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Batter:-
Cream 1 cup of soft butter and 2 cups sugar until fluffy.
Add 2 eggs, one at a time.
Add 2 cups of either buttermilk OR 1 cup sourdough starter and 1 cup milk
Fold in 4 cups of flour which has been sifted with 2 tsp baking soda
Cinnamon sugar:-
In a small bowl mix
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Prepare two loaf pans.
Pour 1/4 of the batter into each loaf pan
Sprinkle 3/4 of the cinnamon-sugar mix
Pour the rest of the batter into the two loaf pans
Sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon-sugar on top
With a knife or skewer swirl through the batter and sugar mix
Bake at 180o for 45-50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean
Cool for 20 minutes then turn out.
Can be frozen but lasts for 5-6 days in an air tight container.

