Daring Baker's Challenge: Meringue Filled Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

After an absence of far too long, the Daring Baker's Challenge this month was too good to pass up. A Yeasted Meringue Filled Coffee Cake. Yum! That coupled with the return of my stand mixer (which broke on Thanksgiving) from KitchenAid*, and it seemed like the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I opted to make Jamie’s All-American versions with cinnamon, chopped pecans and chocolate chips or chopped chocolate - it simply sounded too good to be true. While the recipe was fun to make, the results were less than amazing. We certainly won't be making this again, but rejoining the Daring Baker's Challenge was fun.

*Here's the backstory on the mixer in case you missed the saga...the mixer decided it didn't want to mix anymore on Thanksgiving while I was making the rolls. Happily, it was still under warranty, but apparently the pretty blue version I have isn't popular-and they usually send you a new/repaired one and you send them yours. But since I wanted to keep the blue version it took quite a while to negotiate me sending it to them, them repairing it and sending it back. But KitchenAid honored the warranty and took care of everything free of charge. And it now runs better than ever. Yea KitchenAid!

Fresh Blackberry Pie

This time of year, there's just not much better than a Fresh Blackberry Pie loaded with ripe, sweet, plump blackberries. I look forward to it every year. And for reasons that have mostly to do navigating what always seems to be a busy summer and a short blackberry season more years than not I don't make it.
But this year - the stars aligned and there's fresh blackberry pie! Hurray!!! Now the only problem is that one pie will probably not be enough... Oh well, it's super easy to make and I got extra berries. :) So what's the beauty of this pie? 

1) The only thing you bake is the crust. 2) The berries aren't baked so they don't have that cloying gummy sweet aspect most blackberry pies do. 3)Those luscious berries are held together with a nice light sweet binding that comes together with the berries and the crispness of the sweet crust for a heady taste of summer on your fork. 

Feeling inspired? Here's the recipe, it'll be done and chilling in less than 45 minutes:

Sweet Pie Crust:

Makes one 9 inch crust  

1 cup  flour 1/2 cup  margarine 1/4 cup  powdered sugar 1/4 cup  walnuts, chopped

 

Mix crust and pat into a pie pan. Do not turn over edges of pan. Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes, then cool. Fresh Berry Pie:

1 Sweet Pie Crust 3 Tbs  cornstarch 1 cup  sugar 1 cup  water 2 Tbs  corn syrup, light 3 Tbs  black cherry jello, regular (not sugarfree) 4 cups  blackberries, fresh

Cook until thick cornstarch, sugar, water. Add cornsyrup and jello. Cool to luke warm. Place berries on bottom of pie plate on crust. Pour 1/2 of jello mixture over. Place remainder of berries in the pie pan. Pour remainder of jello mixture over the top of berries. Refridgerate 4 hours or overnight.  You can substitute strawberries and strawberry jello or whatever berry/fruit you'd like by pairing it with the appropriate jello flavor.