Pumpkin Coffee Cake

Want to start your morning with something that just screams fall, smells wonderful, and tastes scrumptious? This coffee cake fits the bill. It's loaded with pumpkin, topped with a pecan streusel and drizzled with a creamy icing. Perfect for savoring with that morning cup of coffee!

Coffee Cake:
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
15 oz. can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
3 large eggs
2 1/2 cups white wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbs. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. salt

Streusel Topping:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbs. butter, melted
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the inside of a bundt pan with nonstick spray and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until mixed well. Beat in the pumpkin and eggs. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder,pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture. Mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Prepare the streusel topping. In a small bowl stir together the flour, sugars, cinnamon, melted butter and pecans. Sprinkle the streusel over the cake batter. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 10- 15 minutes. Remove from pan and invert the cake so that the streusel is on the top.Allow to completely cool. Drizzle with icing if desired.

Icing:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
cream

Place the powdered sugar in a small bowl. Whisk in cream one teaspoon at a time until icing reaches a consistency to drizzle over the coffee cake.

Notes:  I used pecans, but you can substitute walnuts or leave the nuts out. I used pumpkin pie spice, because I had it in my spice cabinet. You can substitute 3 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg for the pumpkin pie spice. For the cake component, I used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour. Feel free to use all-purpose.