Café au Lait Coffee Cake: National Café au Lait Day

February 17 is National Café au lait Day! Café au lait is French for "coffee with milk" and refers to a specific French coffee drink, although like most things there are multiple varieties. Don't confuse it, though, with a Caffe latte. To celebrate today, go to your local cafe or brew a cup at home, or you can make this sensational Café au Lait Coffee Cake from Nicole at MadebyNicole. Her recipe is fool-proof, and it's filled with Chocolate Chips. As always, you can use any good quality chocolate, chopped into small chunks in place of chocolate chips.

For those of you lucky enough to live in New Orleans, pop on over to the Café du Monde on February 17 for a Café Au Lait. They make it with chicory, which gives it a strong, bitter taste. The bitterness of the chicory offsets the sweetness of the powdered-sugar-covered beignets which of course you'll want to have. O.K., getting ahead of myself. Chocolate Beignet recipe will be posted closer to Mardi Gras. :-)

Café Au Lait Coffee Cake 
Recipe by Nicole Maki

Crumb Topping:
1 tsp instant coffee
1/2 C brown sugar
2/3 C flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 Tbsp cold butter
1 C chocolate chips
1 1/4 C pecans

Cake:
1/2 C softened butter
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1 C sour cream
2 Tbsp instant coffee
2 Tbsp warm water
2 3/4 C flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C milk

Glaze:
1/2 C icing sugar
milk or cream to desired consistency
vanilla (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13 pan
Make crumb topping: Stir together dry ingredients, cut in butter, add chocolate chips and nuts.
In a large bowl beat sugar and butter until light. Add eggs, then sour cream and then coffee dissolved in water.
In a small bowl whisk together dry ingredients. Gradually stir into moist ingredients starting with 1/3 of dry mixture, 1/2 of milk, 1/3 dry, 1/2 milk final 1/3 dry mixture.
Spread half of batter into pan. Sprinkle with 1 1/2 C of topping. Cover with remaining batter and finish with crumb topping.
Bake for 60 – 65 minutes

(Optional) Cool and drizzle glaze off a fork onto the top of the cake.

Photo: Nicole Maki Thanks, Nicole