Coffee Cake

Yummy note: This is one of my easier recipes to throw together pretty quickly, not to mention very tasty. This coffee cake kinda reminds me of those slices of pound cake you pay a couple bucks for at the local coffee shops. What's also great about this recipe, the coffee cake stays pretty moist for several days and makes a great breakfast or anytime snack. My family makes this coffee cake usually in a 9x13 pan and it turns out very well. I decided to take it another route and wanted to do a shaped pan variety. I just bought a new pretty sunflower cake pan I wanted to try out, so I used it to make my coffee cake this time around. It turned out beautifully as you can see.




Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix
1 - 3oz. package of Instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar and 1-2 tsp cinnamon mixed together - set aside

Directions:

Prepare a cake pan with cooking spray and flour, or use a prepared cake release product. I used the cake release product, as my pan had many groves in it, that I was afraid the sugary sticky cake mixture could get stuck. I couldn't find my pastry brush, so instead I used a plastic baggie to avoid messy hands and applied the cake release product to my pan.

Next, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry cake mix, instant vanilla pudding, eggs, oil, water, and vanilla together. Stir until combined well and mixture begins to thicken. Pour 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Then layer with 1/2 of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Then pour remaining batter over that and sprinkle with remaining topping. Depending on pan, bake anywhere from about 35-40 minutes or so until the coffee cake gets a nice crunchy cinnamon sugar topping and the toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean.

If you wish, you can add a simply powdered sugar glaze on top. I used about a cup or so of powdered sugar mixed in with about a couple of teaspoons of milk to achieve a thickness of the glaze. Pour over coffee cake and enjoy.