Make Do Coffee Cake

After a week away for Elizabeth's surgery and returning home with my daughter from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, a 20 mile trip to the grocery store was not on the agenda as far as I was concerned. I figured with her not having much of an appetite and it being such a hot July that I would just make small meals from what we had here in the house. Well, my little girl asked me to make a cake. Out of flour, out of granulated sugar, out of sour cream, out of real butter, I told her that I would figure out a way to make some sort of cake. This is what I came up with and it actually turned out quite tasty. It is a little denser than I normally like my cakes, but a rich moist coffee cake isn't a bad thing!

Ingredients:

1 stick room temperature margarine
1 C Light Brown Sugar
3 C Bisquick
1 1/2 C Buttermilk
3 Eggs
1 1/2 t Vanilla

Topping:

1/2 C Light Brown Sugar
1/2 C Bisquick
1/2 stick cold margarine

Glaze:

1 C Powdered Sugar
1/2 t Almond Extract
3-4 T Water

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour Bundt Pan. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients. Mix together with a fork until it becomes a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle into the bottom of the Bundt pan. Cream margarine and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla and mix until well combined. Add Bisquick 1 cup at a time mixing well after each to make a smooth batter. Pour over top of topping mixture. Place in oven and bake about 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle of cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and immediately invert onto a plate, leaving pan in place for 5 minutes. Remove pan. Mix together glaze and slowly drizzle on cake while still warm. Some of the glaze will soak in.

You can serve it warm or wait until cooled to eat some.....I couldn't wait and neither could Elizabeth.

Stuffed Coffee Cake

This turns out to be Cinnamon rolls meet "Monkey Bread".

Ingredients:

Dough:

2 C all purpose flour
1/4 t baking soda
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
6 T butter, very cold
1 C buttermilk (approximately)

Filling:

1 8oz block of cream cheese

Glaze/ coating:

2/3 C sugar
2/3 C brown sugar
1 T Cinnamon
1/2 C melted butter

Powder sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine dry dough ingredients in a large bowl. Cut butter into dry ingredients until it resembles a coarse meal or peas. Add buttermilk a little at a time and mix until just combined. If dough is dry add additional buttermilk a little at a time. This dough should be slightly wet. Lightly flour a flat surface and place dough. Flatten to about a 10 X 18 rectangle. Using a sharp, floured knife cut dough into 3 inch squares.  Combine sugar and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Spray a bundt or tube pan with nonstick cooking spray and sprinkle approximately 3 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar mixture in the bottom of the pan. Cut cream cheese into 20 pieces. Place a piece of cream cheese into the center of a dough square. Fold edges of dough square up over the cream cheese to make a pocket. Roll pocket in cinnamon sugar and place seams side up in the bottom of the pan. Repeat until you have an entire level in the pan. Sprinkle layer with 3 tbs of cinnamon sugar mixture and drizzle with 1/2 of the melted butter. Make the second layer the same as the first except place the seam side down. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar and drizzle the remaining butter over. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately invert onto a plate. Leave pan in place for 10 minutes then remove pan. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.