Raspberry Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I'm a bit obsessed right now. With raspberries, lemon zest, and cream cheese. All wrapped up in a delicious and addictive coffee cake. Perfect for breakfast, second breakfast (um, should I admit to a third breakfast?), after-school snack, and dessert.

I've been baking and tweaking this raspberry lemon cream cheese coffee cake three times in the past week.

It was so good. And it just kept getting better.

It all started with this coffee cake by Pinch of Yum (my new favorite cooking blog!).

I loved the flavors in her recipe but wanted a coffee cake that was lighter and fresher. I wanted fresh raspberries rather than the jam. And I really wanted some lemon with my raspberries and cream cheese.

And so began my week of tweaking (and eating). All in the name of getting it just right.

To make the coffee cake just a bit healthier, I used white wheat flour instead of all purpose flour and yogurt in place of sour cream. I also added more baking powder to make the coffee cake lighter. And lemon zest and juice, just because it pairs with raspberries so well, bringing out the fresh, light flavor I wanted.

The hardest part was letting the coffee cake(s) cool.

But it was so worth it.

Here's the recipe, in case you'd like to bring some raspberry coffee cake goodness into your life. (And if you tweak and bake three coffee cakes in the space of a week and come up with an even better version, please share!)

Raspberry Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

(Here's the printable recipe.)

INGREDIENTS

For Coffee Cake

• 2 1/4 cups white wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Zest from 2 lemons
• 3/4 cup butter
• ½ cup ground or finely chopped almonds (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup plain yogurt
• 1 egg
• 1 - 1 ½ cups fresh or frozen raspberries

Cream Cheese Filling

• 8 ounces softened cream cheese
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 egg

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10 inch springform pan.
2. Mix flour, sugar, lemon zest in a food processor. Add butter, cut into ½ inch pieces, to the flour. Pulse until the butter /flour mixture is crumbly.
3. Reserve 1 cup of the crumbs for topping. Add ground almonds to topping crumbs (optional).
4. Dump remaining crumbs into a large bowl and add baking powder, baking soda, salt, yogurt, and 1 egg. Mix until mostly smooth. Gently fold in the raspberries. Use spatula or hands to spread batter over bottom of springform pan.
5. Beat softened cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 egg, and lemon juice until smooth. Pour over the batter in the pan. Sprinkle reserved crumbs on top.
6. Bake for 1 hour. Test doneness by inserting a toothpick.
7. Let cool completely.

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