Pecan Kuchen

Kelli is one of six children. As you can imagine for her parents, getting all those mouths dressed, fed, and out the door in time for church Sunday morning was no small feat. Enter what they called the Sunday Goodie. It was a simple, self-service breakfast pastry that tided you over until the family came home from church to the Sunday roast that had been cooking all morning.

The Sunday Goodie wasn’t one particular thing, but rather the name for whatever the treat happened to be. By the time I joined the family in 2003, that thing—more often than not—was a Manhattan pecan kuchen from the bakery at Wegmans, a regional supermarket. The treat was something of a cross between a pastry, bread, and cake (kuchen is the German word for cake), topped with pecans and a drizzle of icing.

Our version in this recipe is less a pastry and more a moist cake, but the flavors—including a generous helping of pecans and drizzle of icing—are very reminiscent of the Manhattan pecan kuchen of yore. The Sunday Goodie lives on gluten-free.

Pecan Kuchen
Makes one 8-inch round pan

Ingredients

For the cake:
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup cow or almond milk
1 tsp GF pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup (188 g) Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
2 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt

For the streusel:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
2 tbsp butter or coconut oil
3/4 cup chopped, toasted pecans

For the glaze:
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 to 2 tsp cow or almond milk

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Grease an 8-inch round baking pan.
2. Cream together the sugar and butter/coconut oil.
3. Add the eggs and mix to combine.
4. Add the milk and vanilla and stir.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix on high for 5 seconds, until the cake batter is smooth.
7. Spread the batter in the prepared baking pan.
8. To make the streusel, mix together the sugar and flour. Work the butter/coconut oil in until pea-sized crumbles form (for butter) or the coconut oil is fully incorporated. Mix in the pecans. Put the streusel on top of the cake batter and gently swirl in.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the cake is lightly golden on top.
10. Allow to cool in the pan for 30 minutes.
11. Prepare the glaze until it’s just drizzling consistency—start with 1 1/2 tsp of milk and add more only if necessary to make it drizzle-worthy. Drizzle over the cooled cake.

Note: To toast the pecans, put them in a single layer on a baking sheet in the preheated oven before you bake the cake for five minutes, until you start to smell them.

Enjoy!

–Pete and Kelli