L.M. Montgomery wrote, “I’m so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers” and I couldn’t agree more. As with any change in season, the first few moments whisper new and old at the same time —they’re a shift from the previous weeks, but still so achingly familiar. I feel a stirring around every corner in October, my heart swelling when I step outside to take a run and the air feels as crisp as a brand new dollar bill. I look for autumn everywhere. There’s a little boy beside me in Duane Reade, earnestly eyeing the Halloween candy display. I almost lean down to say, “between you and me, Almond Joy really gets a bad rap”, but I’ll let him spend years coveting miniature Snickers and Twix before he reaches that very mature conclusion.
If New York City is rounding the corner into fall, then Vermont is fully in its embrace. I drove up last Sunday and once I passed the Massachusetts state line, the forest lining the highway seemed to burst into flaming color.
As the miles tick past, the colors deepen: vermillion, crimson, burnt oranges. The foliage looks even brighter as it’s set against the dark green of pine trees and other evergreens that dot the hills. I stop just before I get to Woodstock, pulling over beside the bridge over Quechee Gorge. Hiking trails criss-cross the gorge, and I walk to the bridge to take a few deep breaths of fresh Vermont air before stretching my legs down one of the steep paths that leads to the rushing river below.
I pick up dinner, exhausted from driving, and eat at the bar amidst the happy chatter of the restaurant, people-watching as I eat a salad topped with crispy salmon. My huge, fluffy, white hotel bed looks about as delicious as a bowl of crème brulee or a peppermint stick ice cream sundae with fudge (my forever favorite). I manage a few pages of this novel, along with a very sophisticated hotel room dessert of creamline sheep’s milk yogurt from the Coop with a packet of Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter (fancy is in the eye of the beholder!), before falling asleep.
Monday morning brings warm air but a persistent gray curtain of rain that ebbs and flows in intensity throughout the day. I spend the morning filming a step-by-step guide to making pizza, and by noon the smell of crispy cheese and just-baked dough has me ravenous.
It’s not a good day to get outside, so I wait til Tuesday, which is nonstop meetings from 9 AM to 4 PM. I spend the last hour of the workday answering emails and organizing myself for tomorrow, before rushing to change into spandex (I live 99% of my active life in these) and a fleece and driving to the trailhead at the Gile Mountain fire tower, just a few miles from the Dartmouth campus.
Dozens of hikers are coming down, but they’ve all just missed the very best time of day to be at the summit. The sun is just starting its slow descent, infusing the entire sky with soft cotton candy pinks that look too vibrant to be real. Laid out in a 360 degree blanket view is the forest itself—miles in every direction of hills covered in the changing colors of autumn.
I think about poetry. About music. About all the ways we try to capture feelings like this—ones far too big for us to articulate. Ones far too important for us to not take with us into tomorrow, and the next day, and the fabric of who we are.
And then, after all that thinking and walking, I’m starving. Into the dusky dark, down winding Vermont roads. Windows down, music playing softly. There’s a hot shower waiting, dinner of a perfect salad and more salmon and a bowl of mushrooms cooked in a hot savory broth.
For dessert, there’s an entire lack of foresight on my part, and I have to make do with more chocolate hazelnut butter and a bit of crunchy granola. It’s lovely, but all I really want is a slice of cake warm from the oven.
And for the next time you feel the same way, this is the cake to make.
I love love love this recipe—because it’s coconutty but not in an overwhelming way. It’s not a *coconut* dessert the way a classic coconut cake is, or coconut ice cream, or a coconut macaroon. Rather, it tastes like a perfect classic coffee cake—packed with a fat ribbon of cinnamon-cocoa streusel—but with a little extra intrigue from the coconut. I add both coconut milk and two types of shredded coconut to the batter, and then the glaze has more coconut milk. If you prefer, you can even sprinkle some toasted flaked coconut on top of the glaze. And if you want less coconut flavor, just use cream in the glaze instead of the coconut milk.
A note on the recipe: I’ve used this gorgeous Bundt pan, which I really love, but any 10-cup or 12-cup one would do. You could also probably use a 9” x 13” pan in a pinch.
Coconut Streusel Coffee Cake
For the streusel
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (60g) all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 56g) cold unsalted butter
For the cake
3 cups (360g) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks, 226g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups (296g) sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup (170g) full-fat Greek yogurt
¼ cup canned coconut milk
1 cup (85g) sweetened shredded coconut
½ cup (56g) unsweetened shredded coconut, lightly toasted
For the glaze
1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup canned coconut milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 10- or 12-cup Bundt pan very thoroughly—make sure you get inside every little nook and cranny! I use baker’s spray for this, which I find is the most reliable choice for ensuring my cakes don’t stick.
After greasing the pan, lightly sprinkle the inside with granulated sugar, turn it upside down, and tap to get rid of any excess loose sugar. This is a much better approach than using flour for keeping your cake from sticking.
First make the streusel: Whisk together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the butter and using a fork or your fingers, work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks evenly sandy. You don’t want bigger pieces, as you would with biscuit dough, but rather it should all look pretty coarse. You can use a food processor here if you like!
Set the streusel mixture aside and make the cake batter.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes on medium-high speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each and scraping down the sides as you go.
Add the vanilla, yogurt, and coconut milk and beat until smooth.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until the batter just comes together, but don’t overmix. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula and gently fold in any dry bits.
Stir in both shredded coconuts, and then pour half of the batter (it will be thick, and don’t worry about the exact amount, just eyeball it!) into your prepared Bundt pan, smoothing the top as best you can. Sprinkle the streusel mixture evenly on top of the batter, then pour the remaining batter on top and smooth the top.
Bake for about 50 minutes—you may need an extra 5 minutes depending on your oven—and remove the cake from the oven when a tester inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Don’t overbake Bundt cakes! It’s honestly far better to go a few minutes under rather than over, as the cake continues to bake as it cools.
Let the cake cool on a rack in the pan for about 15 minutes. Do NOT try and remove the cake from the pan before this time, as it’s too warm and will fall apart. I find that 15 minutes is the sweet spot for cooling, and any longer and it can sometimes get stuck as the sugar in the pan cools and gets sticky.
I often like to run a small offset spatula around the top edges of the cake, depending on the design of my pan (it’s easier with some Bundt pans than others), just to start encouraging the cake to loosen as it’s cooling.
After 15 minutes, place a plate or wire rack over the top of the pan, flip it over, and remove the pan. It should slide right out! If it doesn’t, DO NOT PANIC. This happens. You still made a cake. Invite some friends, or your kids, or your wife, into the kitchen and hand them some forks and eat warm cake straight from the pan and laugh about the entire thing and be happy.
If your cake doesn’t stick, then wahoo! Let it cool on a rack while you make the glaze.
To make the glaze, whisk together all the ingredients, adding more sugar or more coconut milk as needed to get a nice, thick, pourable consistency. Drizzle the glaze liberally over the cake.