Banana Cream Cheese Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel -- Sylvia’s Table, One More Year

Yom Kippur. I fasted. I prayed at home — the synagogue offered outdoor services but I did not attend because outdoor Yom Kippur services in September on Long Island means mosquitoes, and I draw the line at being bitten while atoning. Instead I prayed in the living room, with Marvin in his chair and the machzor open on the coffee table and the shofar playing from a YouTube video on my phone, which is not the same as hearing the shofar in the synagogue but which produced the sound, the ancient alarming sound of a ram's horn calling you to attention, and the sound filled the living room and Marvin looked up from his chair and said, "What is that?" and I said, "The shofar, Marv. For Yom Kippur," and he said, "Oh yes," as if he had known and simply needed reminding, and maybe he had, and maybe the sound reached the same place in his brain where the Hebrew prayers live, the deep storage, the basement, and maybe for a moment the shofar opened a door down there and something ancient and familiar walked through.

The break-fast was for four again — me, Marvin, Gloria, Janet. Bagels and lox and cream cheese and the coffee cake, Sylvia's recipe. I set the table with the good plates and the linen napkins because a break-fast for four deserves no less care than a break-fast for fourteen, because care is not proportional to headcount, care is absolute, and the linen napkins are ironed, and the coffee cake is perfect, and the four of us ate with the specific pleasure of people who have not eaten for twenty-five hours and who are now in the presence of smoked salmon and cream cheese, which is a combination that constitutes, in the Jewish culinary tradition, a form of religious ecstasy.

After the break-fast, after Gloria and Janet went home, I sat in the quiet house and thought about what I had asked for in my prayers. I asked for another year. Not a good year — I have stopped asking for good, because good is a standard the universe is not currently meeting — but a year. A year with Marvin still here. A year with the grandchildren growing. A year with the teaching. A year with the kitchen. One more year of the chain not breaking. That's all. That's everything.

Sylvia’s coffee cake is the one I always come back to — the one that earns its place on the good plates, next to the lox and the linen napkins, whether the table seats four or fourteen. This banana cream cheese version with the chocolate chip streusel is the recipe I’ve settled into over the years: the cream cheese keeps it impossibly moist through the long fast-day morning of baking and waiting, and the streusel on top is exactly the kind of thing you want in your hand when twenty-five hours of fasting is finally, mercifully behind you.

Banana Cream Cheese Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• Streusel Topping:
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Cake:
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch square or round baking pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Make the streusel. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cut in the cold butter with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse, pea-sized crumbles. Stir in the chocolate chips. Refrigerate while you make the batter.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
4. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
5. Add the cream cheese and eggs. Beat in the cream cheese until fully combined and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then mix in the vanilla extract.
6. Fold in the bananas. Stir the mashed bananas and sour cream into the wet mixture until just combined.
7. Combine wet and dry. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold gently with a spatula until just incorporated — do not overmix.
8. Assemble and top. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Scatter the chilled streusel topping evenly over the surface of the batter.
9. Bake. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If the streusel begins to over-brown before the center is set, tent loosely with foil.
10. Cool and serve. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 44g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 185mg