Make-Ahead Gingerbread Coffee Cake with Cranberry Pecan Streusel

NOTE: If you wanted to make this cake way in advance, you could complete this recipe up to the point of wrapping and refrigerating the cake. Instead, you’d double wrap it and freeze it. Then you could just thaw it overnight in the fridge before warming it through in the oven and serving it.

2 days in advance: Place the cranberries and apple cider for the streusel into a small bowl and cover. Refrigerate to rehydrate the berries.

1 day in advance: Make the streusel. First, drain the cranberries. Combine the flour, cinnamon and brown sugar in a medium bowl and using two knives or a pastry cutter, cut in the cold butter until you have crumbly streusel. Mix in the pecans and drained cranberries. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and make a foil sling for a 9-inch square baking pan: tear off 4, 16-inch long pieces of aluminum foil and fold them in half. Situate two side-by-side in the pan, covering the bottom of the pan to the edge (they will overlap). Situate the other two strips in the same manner, but perpendicular to the first. The overhanging foil of the sling will hang over the sides of the pan and make it easy to remove the cake from the pan after baking and cooling. Butter and flour the sling.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a separate large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (at least 2-3 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the molasses, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl when you need to.

Gently mix the sour cream and milk in a measuring cup. Into the creamed butter mixture, add the dry ingredients and milk mixture alternately, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat until just combined.

Pour the batter into the buttered and floured baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for about 25 minutes before sprinkling the streusel evenly over the top of the cake (and kind of pressing it on). Then continue baking for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool completely. Remove it from its pan using the foil sling and wrap it tightly with plastic wrap (I wrap the foil sling and all so I that can just pop it back in the pan to refresh later on) and stick it in the fridge.

The morning of: Let the cake sit out and come to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Then remove the plastic wrap and pop it back in its pan and into the oven for a few minutes until warmed through. Let it cool for about 10 minutes.