Talk about a surprisingly good coffee cake, this is it. When I first read this recipe, it didn’t grab me as all that good. I had been given some ripe bananas to use up and I wanted to bake something really different with them to feature here on line. After looking through most of my cook books I came back to this recipe. What is really unique about this single layer coffee cake is it has oatmeal added to the batter. The oatmeal with the bananas give the cake a wonderful moist texture to it. The crumb top adds a crunch to it that make this a special treat that will have family and friends asking for more.

It doesn’t take long to make and is quite easy to mix together. I made the cake in an 9 inch spring form pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. The recipe which comes from a vintage cookbook called for a 10 inch round cake pan. For a long time, my spring form pans rolled around in the back of my cupboard because I only used them once in a great while for a cheese cake. A spring form pan is great for baking single layer cakes because it is so easy to remove the baked cake from the pan. This is really true for a crumb topped cake because you can lose the topping flipping out the cake. Besides who wants to serve a cake in a pan when you can remove it and serve it on a pretty cake plate.

Banana Oatmeal Coffee Cake

Topping:

¼ cup flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons cold butter cut in small pieces

¾ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/3 cup rolled oats

½ cup chopped walnuts

Cake:

1 ½ cups flour

¾ cup rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 ripe bananas mashed

¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

½ cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup melted butter

1 teaspoon banana flavoring or vanilla extract

Preheat oven 350 degrees F. Prepare a 8 or 9 inch spring form pan with vegetable spray. Cut a round piece of parchment paper to fit bottom of pan and also spray with vegetable spray.

Make topping first. Place flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice and butter in food processor with blade. Pulse a few times to cut in the butter. Add oatmeal and pulse just enough to mix. Set aside.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and oats with a whisk. Mash bananas with brown sugar using mixer. Add eggs, yogurt, melted butter and flavoring. Mix well. Stir in dry ingredients until moisten on slow speed scraping down the sides.

Spoon into prepared pan and sprinkle topping on top then sprinkle chopped walnuts evenly on top. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until tooth pick comes out clean in center of cake and the cake sides have pulled away from pan.

Cool enough to handle removing the spring form from bottom. Finish cooling cake and remove the bottom and paper. Drizzle top with frosting or melted candy coating. For a simple finishing just dust with powdered sugar.

So for all of you that have spring form cake pans that reside in the nether world deep in your hardest to reach cupboard. Take time to rescue it because it is a great help with baking single layered coffee cakes

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