Yogurt and brown sugar coffee cake

In the midst of moving (will we EVER be out of the "midst" of moving??), I ran out of sugar. I have more . . . somewhere, so I don't want to have to buy more, but I didn't have enough to make our favorite sour cream coffee cake. At the same time, I thought our sour cream was no good anymore (untrue, as it turned out, but oh well), so I tried an alternate version of our "cinnamon bread."

My favorite part of this recipe? You can use even really old, hard brown sugar--the kind where you can't break down the lumps--and that makes it even better! The rocks of brown sugar melt into sweet gooey pockets of goodness!

Ingredients

Cake

• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 2 T softened butter
• 1 egg
• 3/4 c plain or vanilla yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla (omit if using vanilla pudding)
• 1 1/2 c baking mix (like Bisquick)

Topping

• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1/4 c flour
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
• 2 T firm butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8x8 glass or metal baking pan.

2. For the cake, in a mixer or medium mixing bowl, beat the brown sugar with the butter until combined. Beat in egg, yogurt and vanilla. Add Bisquick and stir until combined. Pour into prepared pan.

3. For the topping, combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. Using two forks, a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs or wet sand. Sprinkle over cake batter in pan.

4. Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

See that pocket of gooey goodness in the corner there??

Yum!

Sour cream coffee cake with streusel topping

One of the recipes my husband brought to our family was his mother's coffee cake. Now, the recipe was a hand-me-down to her, and she wasn't sure where it came from, either—possibly a newspaper? But it's become a tradition in our family to make this coffee cake (or as we call it, cinnamon bread, since we don't drink coffee and I'd rather not serve "cake" for breakfast) as often as we can.

Coffee Cake by Mr. T in DC, on Flickr
via CC license

Of course, my favorite story about this recipe is the time I submitted it to a local church cookbook, and they printed my Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe . . . without sour cream.

Ingredients

Cake

• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 T softened butter
• 1 egg
• 3/4 c sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 c baking mix (like Bisquick)

Topping

• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 1/4 c flour
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
• 2 T firm butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8x8 glass or metal baking pan.

2. For the cake, in a mixer or medium mixing bowl, beat the sugar with the butter until combined. Beat in egg, sour cream and vanilla. Add Bisquick and stir until combined. Pour into prepared pan.

3. For the topping, combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. Using two forks, a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs or wet sand. Sprinkle over cake batter in pan.

4. Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Next time, I'll share a variation on this recipe I made for Father's Day!

What's your favorite breakfast tradition?