Fruity Coconut Coffee Cake & Pumpkin Pancakes

I have been less than enthused with the computer these days, and sitting down to do anything on it.  My 6 week engagement as a Census employee has ended and so I have more time on my hands, hopefully to bake better than I have been because all the mistakes and mess ups are killing me!

These are last weeks baking/cooking endeavors.

Fruity Coconut Coffee Cake


I searched this recipe out online because I threw away the copy I had once I was done because it was not my finest hour and in the end wasn't something I'd make again. It was tasty and we ate it for a week (with a small after modification) but it's not a keeper.

Cake:
	Crisco® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray
	2 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
	1 teaspoon baking powder
	1/2 teaspoon baking soda
	1/4 teaspoon salt
	1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
	1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
	1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
	2 large eggs
	1/4 cup PET® Evaporated Milk
	1 teaspoon vanilla
	1 (12 ounce) jar Smucker's® Peach Preserves, Pineapple or Apricot Preserves (1 cup)
Topping:
	2/3 cup granulated sugar
	2/3 cup PET® Evaporated Milk
	1/4 cup butter or margarine
	1 large egg
	1-1/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut
	2/3 cup chopped pecans
	1 teaspoon vanilla extract Cake: PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Spray two 8-inch cake pans with the no-stick spray. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Combine cream cheese, butter and sugar in the mixer bowl. Attach mixer bowl and flat beater. Turn to Speed 4 beating until the mixture is light and flugffy. Stop and scrape the bowl. Turn to Stir Speed; add eggs one at a time. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add 1/4 cup evaporated milk and vanilla to bowl. Turn to Stir Speed; gradually add dry ingredients to bowl. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to Speed 4 and blend just until moistened. Evenly divide and spread 1/2 of the batter into the two prepared cake pans. Evenly divide the preserves between the two pans. Evenly divide and spread the remaining batter over the preserves in the pans. Bake 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. **After reading this version of the recipe I would have liked it better than just spreading the preserves on top, as the version I had said to do. Live & Learn.  They baked up kinda weird because the preserves were on top not in the center. I should have realized this was not cool but it was a bit too late then. I also had one other major screw up...before putting the 2 cakes in the oven i turned around to pick something up and realized that i never added the evaporated milk! The batter seemed fine, but only time would tell on that one.  Topping: COMBINE sugar, 2/3 cup of evaporated milk, butter and egg in a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat. Stir until mixture thickens and begins to bubble. Remove from heat. Stir in coconut, pecans and vanilla. Spread over cakes, dividing mixture evenly. Broil 4 inches from the heat for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown. I also used the broiler on my oven for the first time. I kid you not! Our oven is small and crappy so I never bothered. When we opened it to try it out (Hubby helped) we found some old cookie sheets and a second muffin pan! Score!  So the final verdict: it was good. I ended up buying another jar or preserves and spooned a bit over top of each piece so we'd get the flavor that was intended and it helped a lot. The leftover evaporated milk made no difference at all, the cake was moist enough.  Edible for sure, but won't be made by me again. I think I may need to give up on coffee cakes in general as they seem to not like me much.  The same night I made these for dinner: Pumpkin Pancakes  I was planning on making a batch from scratch but decided I should use the Bisquick in the cabinet so..... Ingredients: 2 cups Bisquick 1/2 cup packed brwn sugar 1 egg 1 tspn cinnamon 1/2 tspn giner 1/4 tspn nutmeg 1/4 tspn salt 1 cup pumpkin 1 cup of milk *Extra milk to thin if needed.  Mix together until blended and cook up in a frying pan with cooking spray or butter.  I added a bit of extra milk in mine to thin it out some. They came out really yummy!  I used the rest of the yummy maple syrup leftover from my Maple Bacon Cupcakes from last month. Very tasty stuff! KC agreed they were really good. We had enough for us both to have dinner, he had them for lunch the next day and breakfast the day after that!!