Live Long Enough And Yesterday's Good Times Roll Again - Just Like That Coffee Cake Your Mama Made

The nice thing about living a long time is that if something good happens, you usually get the chance to do it again. When we're young and good things happen, we're typically too busy doing and being to notice them. Good things happening are accepted as a matter of course. Games played with family and friends, cozy moments, sweet foods, and fun times are life's fabric for the fortunate young. None of it seems remarkable; it's just the way it's been and the way it's expected to continue.

The good is ordinary... that is until we grow up. Then we take on bigger thrills and challenges. New experiences replace earlier ones. Life moves so fast that we've little time to contemplate it. If it occurs to us to remember simple pleasures of childhood, we can, but whose got the time? The adult mind is busy contemplating the future so we can give today's children the good times which they will ultimately take for-granted. It's up to us to keep the good times rolling. After all, no parent wants his/her child to think a hot meal, a story read-aloud, or a joyful hug is in any way exceptional. We want our children's lives filled to the brim with these good things and more so we work ourselves into fits to make it all happen. Thoughts about our own yesterdays are miles away, that is until something very simple happens again. I speak from experience because today something old and good happened in my kitchen.

This morning's  sour cream coffee cake is where I've been rambling to. Click on "continue reading..." for the recipe and story.

Last night my daughter had a friend sleep over. In honor of the occasion and to make sure the girls had an exceptionally good time, I decided to bake a sweet treat for them for breakfast. Experience has taught me to look for yummy breakfast-food recipes in the Wisconsin Bed And Breakfast Association's cookbooks. Those folks are experts at creating good times for people through food. My cupboard was not very-well stocked, which limited my possibilities, but the Honeybee Inn's Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe I could make with ease. It's one of those extremely simple recipes: mix up the wet ingredients; mix up the dry; mix wet and dry together, then bake. Well, I did have to cover it in a cinnamon-sugar topping, but that hardly counts as complicated.

While mixing, my child guest asked what I was making. I answered coffee cake and she asked, "What's that?" Delighted that I was giving this child a new pleasure (although I questioned that she really had never had coffee cake), I answered that coffee cake is like a great big muffin that everybody shares. But the child was still worried, she wasn't sure she'd like coffee in her cake.

The recipe makes a very large coffee cake, so I split the batter between two cake pans. As it baked I got my first blast from the past down memory lane. Smoke filled the kitchen and adjoining rooms when the batter spilled over the pans onto the oven floor and burned. Just like in winters passed, we opened the windows and doors and inhaled the fresh, cold air. True, it was a bit embarrassing when the child's mother arrived to pick her up, but this woman is an old friend and accustomed to our business-as-usual chaos.

The second and far better time re-lived happened in the eating of the coffee cake. One bite of the moist, buttery, cinnamon-flavor and I realized that this cake was nearly identical to the coffee cake my mother used to make for our family's Sunday brunches. But my mother was no baker, and her coffee cake came out of a box. I can't recall the brand, but the steps were similar, mix up the wet ingredients, mix in the pre-packaged dry ones, top with pre-packaged cinnamon topping and bake. I don't remember her cake smoking though. For years of Sundays we ate that sour cream coffee cake.

And this morning I recognized this cake as an edible thread in the fabric of my life. Today, in the rush of trying to feed children and clear out smoke, all before we left for church, I'd re-created this simple, good time. The good thing that happened in my past now happened in my children's present. But what I'll tell you next won't surprise you. My sour cream coffee cake was better than my mother's!, -all because I'd used real butter, fresh eggs, and lots of cinnamon. Yes, the secret to a good life is longevity. Just live long enough and you not only get to re-live the good times, you get to make them better!

So if you're looking for a sour cream coffee cake recipe that's better than your mama's, here's one that will likely do.

Cake

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar (I used 1 1/2 cups)
  
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sour cream
• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

Topping

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted

    Mix sugar and cinnamon together.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in large mixing bowl. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Alternate adding sour cream with dry-ingredient mixture. Spread half of batter in greased 9" x 13" baking dish. Sprinkle half of topping mixture over batter. Add rest of batter by Tablespoons over topping. Smooth with knife. Sprinkle remaining topping. Pour melted butter over top evenly. Bake for 40 minutes.

Taste and smile. Barb Ruka who runs the Honeybee Inn Bed and Breakfast in Horicon, WI has been baking this sour cream coffee cake for 25 years and always receives warm praises for it from happy guests. Make it and you will too.

This recipe is good enough to enter in the food blogging event, Sugar High Friday, Sweet Comforts, hosted by Kate at A Merrier World. Maybe you have some sweet comfort recipes to send her too.

Comments

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[Amanda]

So glad you enjoyed the cake. This recipe IS a keeper, isn't it? Cheers!

[oil painting]

Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for hi
Yummmmm! I'll definitely save this recipe. Thanks! :)

[Laptop Battery]

Yummmmm! I'll definitely save this recipe. Thanks! :)

[oil paintings]

Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for hi

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It seems so delicious, yummy!

[Kaye Swain]

Yummmmm! I'll definitely save this recipe. Thanks! :)

[Barbara Ruka]

I'm glad you enjoyed the coffee cake. I made it for my kids way before I ever made it for guests. I'd love to make it for you sometime at our inn! :)

Barbara Ruka
Honeybee Inn B&B
Horicon, WI