Perfect Coffee Cake

Around here, Sundays are usually dedicated to cooking, eating, or shopping for things to cook and eat. We had already planned on getting our hands dirty in the kitchen today, but when Twitter informed us that it was National Coffee Cake Day, things got serious. We looked and looked for a good recipe, but none of them seemed good enough and time was ticking away. We went off an old recipe that we had lying around and converted it to gluten-free and vegan. Now, our entire apartment smells like cinnamon, coffee, and baking [aka: heaven].

Ingredients [for the cake]

1 c. gluten-free rolled oat flour/brown rice flour mixture
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. sea salt
2 1/2 T. melted coconut oil
3 T. maple syrup/raw honey mixture [could use all honey, but we don't recommend all syrup as the batter will be too liquid.]
6 T. coconut milk
1/2 t. apple cider vinegar

Ingredients [for the crumb topping]

1/2 c. oat flour
2 1/2 T. brown sugar
2 T. coconut butter [or solid coconut oil]
1/2 t. cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of salt

Prep

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a small bowl, add coconut milk and apple cider vinegar and stir to combine. Set the mixture aside and allow it to curdle. [It's not as disgusting as it sounds, promise.] Melt the coconut oil and measure out the honey/syrup mixture. Line an 8 x 4 baking dish with parchment paper and set aside.

Steps

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the liquid ingredients – milk mixture, coconut oil, honey/syrup mixture – and stir until a batter forms. Now taste that batter. In Clark’s words: “It’s crack.”
We didn’t have brown rice flour or oat flour, so we used our Blendtec to make it out of the brown rice and gluten-free oats. As usual, it performed like a champ
Now it’s time to concoct the topping [aka: the best part]. In a medium bowl, combine oat flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg. and mix together. Plop the coconut butter into the bowl and use your hands to mix it together. The best part? After mixing it up, that ooey, gooey, cinnamoney goodness is all over your fingers. Act accordinglyPour half of the batter into the pan and even it outSprinkle a layer of topping evenly over the batterAdd the remaining batter and carefully spread it out, then finish it off with the rest of the toppingBake for 25 minutes. 25 minutes is a long time. Clark was clearly pretty anxiousUse a fork or toothpick to test the center. If it comes out batter-free, the cake is done. Let it cool for at least 20 minutes [if you have the self-control for that]This cake definitely has a crumbly consistency. You might need a fork to effectively devour it, but that’s not a bad thing