I had promised a couple of days ago to write about desserts I made on Sunday, but my new freelance job has been taking a lot of time so I haven’t had much time to do it. Tonight, I have the time. I made two things for dessert Sunday to go after the duck dinner, and I tried to make them things that weren’t too heavy since it was a heavy meal. The first thing I made was a quick coffee cake. it was simple and easy, no mixer required, and only took about 30 minutes to bake.

Quick Coffee Cake

Topping

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped coarse

Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cups sour cream

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

7 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans. For the topping: Using your fingers, mix the sugars, flour, butter, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl until the mixture resembles wet sand. Stir in the pecans and set aside.

For the cake: Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the sour cream, sugars, eggs and melted butter together until smooth. Gently fold the egg mixture into the flour mixture until smooth (do not overmix).

Scrape the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top of both cakes. Bake until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes with just a few crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Let the cakes cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before serving.

The cake comes out nice and moist, not too dry like some coffee cakes. Since the recipe makes two cakes, we’ve been having a little in the morning with coffee or after dinner all week long.

The second dessert I made was a simple fruit salad using some of the fresh fruit I had just bought.

Gingered Honeydew, Mango and Blueberry Salad

1/2 honeydew melon, peeled, seeded and chopped medium

2 mangoes, peeled, seeded and chopped medium

1 cup blueberries

2 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon grated lime zest

Pinch salt

Toss all the ingredients together, cover and refrigerate to blend the flavors, about 30 minutes.

I also had some fresh pineapple that I added to the salad, but the beauty of fruit salad is that you can pretty much add whatever fresh fruit is in season and you have at the time.

So those are the desserts I made, which for me is quite a feat since I am not a dessert person. I have another post that will follow this one shortly about last night’s dinner, so check back for that one shortly!