Chocolate Chip Pecan Coffee Cake

This is one deliciously decadent cake. Rich and utterly buttery, with a delicate tang from sour cream and layered inside and out with bittersweet chocolate and toasted pecans. It’s one of those recipes that every time you make, you wonder why you don’t make it more often!

Coffee cakes as they were commonly known, were quite popular in the 60s and 70s. Every great home baker had a variety of recipes and frequently had such a cake on their kitchen counter should a neighbor drop by for coffee. This cake is quite simple to make and a few easy tips will create scrumptious results.

It starts with a luscious pound cake as the base, made with butter, sugar, half a dozen eggs plus sour cream and a generous pour of pure vanilla extract. Blended with flour, a touch of kosher salt and just a tiny bit of baking soda. Then layers of bittersweet chocolate chips and toasted pecans are nestled into the batter.

Some tips for success. Allow your butter and eggs to come to room temperature. This sounds like a step you can skip but don’t. Starting with butter and eggs at room temperature help to create that light and tender cake you’re after.

Always use a high quality and pure vanilla extract. No imitation vanilla. Nope, never. Vanilla helps create the background so it needs to be wonderful. My favorite vanilla extracts are from Nielsen-Massey. They offer a wide selection of terrific flavorings. And take the time to season your Bundt pan with either a good cooking spray or butter followed by a dusting of flour before baking. There is nothing more frustrating than mixing, baking then watching in horror as part of your cake stays behind in the pan. (But it’s happened to all of us and worst case, you can make a trifle with those pieces!)

This is an amazing cake and the aroma wafting through the air as it bakes is oh, so wonderful.  But the taste – well, it’s extraordinary! So, pour yourself a cup of coffee, cut yourself a slice then sit back and enjoy the day.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Coffee Cake

1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature

3 cups sugar

6 extra-large eggs, room temperature

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

3 cups flour

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

2 cups chopped pecans, lightly toasted

Preheat the oven to 350-degrees. Spray a 3-quart Bundt pan with a cooking spray, coating all the sides and crevices really well then dust evenly with flour. Cream the butter until light and smooth on medium speed, about 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly add the sugar mixing into the butter on medium speed, about 1 cup at a time. Beat until the butter and sugar are light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

On low speed add the eggs one at a time, blending well after adding each one. Stir in the sour cream and the vanilla extract on low speed.

In a separate bowl whisk the flour together with the kosher salt and the baking soda. Add the flour mixture about one cup at a time, blending in on low speed, mixing just until the flour disappears. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure the batter is well blended.

Scoop half of the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Sprinkle 1 cup of the chocolate chips evenly over the batter then scatter 1 cup of the pecans over the chocolate chips.

Top with the remaining batter. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips and pecans over the batter.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Take care not to over bake!

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting the cake, still in the pan onto a wire rack. (Place the rack on top of the cake, then flip it over.) Cool for about 30 minutes then gently loosen the cake from the pan. Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack.

Serves 10.