Be careful...

...you might eat the whole thing!

Randomly decided to bake some coffee cake the other day, so I did. Who needs cookbooks and recipes?

I tend to not really measure anything. I like to rely on taste and texture to determine the balance in recipes, so this is all pretty approximate.

D's Loaf O' Coffee Cake

1/2 cup margarine or softened butter
1/3 cup brown sugar, unpacked
2 Tbsps granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt

Filling:

2 Tbsps brown sugar, unpacked
2 tsps granulated sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp hot chocolate mix

In a medium bowl, beat together margarine and brown and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. I use a wooden spoon, and it takes about 3 minutes. Take a small taste of the mixture to ensure it's nicely sweet. If the mixture doesn't seems too heavy or dark, add a little more margarine or butter. Add eggs, one at a time, beating. Add vanilla, beating.

Dump half the flour on top of the liquid mixture in the bowl. Drop baking powder and salt on top of the flour, and incorporate all well. Add rest of the flour gradually until the batter is thick, but not so much that it looks like cookie dough.

Mix the filling ingredients together in a small bowl. Grease and flour a loaf pan or a smallish rectangular cake tin. Pour or drop (depending on the thickness of your batter) a 1" thick layer of batter into the bottom of the tin, and ensure that it is spread evenly over the bottom of the tin. Sprinkle a solid layer of filling over the batter. Pour most of the remaining batter into the tin, gently spreading evenly over the filling layer, and sprinkle the remainder of the filling over the batter. Pour the remainder of the batter into the tin, gently spreading it to cover, or almost cover, the filling layer.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees. The cake should be a crisp golden brown on top, and will be very moist in the centre (a fork will not be totally clean when inserted into the centre of the cake).

Best served warm.

Try not to eat the whole thing by yourself, in one day. Like I have. Today.

My stars, I hate PMS.