I'll take my breakfast without the sand!

Sunday morning growing up meant family breakfast. I never thought much of it as a kid but we always made pancakes, waffles, muffins, and coffee cake from scratch. I was always partial to the coffee cake and for the longest time I thought OUR coffee cake was how everyone made coffee cake.

Not so much!

After being spoiled with the real, sugary goodness growing up I never like the coffee cake (or crumb cakes) that come out of a box and are just add water and an egg. Now that I'm at a point where I try to avoid processed food and still have a treat once in awhile I thought it would be interesting to check out the ingredients on a boxed coffee cake mix that doesn't compare anyways.

I looked at Krusteaz (See the ingredients here) and found some lovely additions like partially hydrogenated soybean & cottonseed oil, modified food starch, dextrose, emulsifiers, artificial flavors, and silicon dioxide. The oil is of the genetically engineered variety and carries the bad fats, modified food starch is most often made of GMO food, dextrose is an added sugar in processed food, the emulsifiers are a chemical to up the shelf life, and silicon dioxide is sand. Yes - sand. You'd be surprised how much sand you've probably eaten away from the beach all in the name of no clumps in the boxed mix.

So, since the boxed version pales in comparison to my family recipe you'll be happy to never buy it again.  Below is a nice weekend treat ... not exactly sugar free but it's okay to have a treat every once in awhile!

Coffee Cake

1 1/2 Cup of Flour (I use whole wheat, unbleached which makes me feel a tiny bit healthy!)
1 heaping tsp. of Baking Powder
3/4 Cup of Sugar
1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil
1 Egg (organic free-range naturally)
1 Cup of Milk

Gooey Cinnamon Topping . . .

1 Cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Cinnamon
Enough water to make a syrup (about 1/4 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the cake ingredients in one bowl and pour into 8x8 baking pan. Mix cinnamon topping and pour the resulting syrup over the cake mix.

I usually do a zig zag pattern when I pour on the cinnamon syrup. What stays on top crisps but mainly it just sinks to the bottom as the cake bakes so when you pull it out of the oven 30-45 minutes later and cut you'll want to flip over onto the plate when serving so the gooey stuff is on top.

Here's to not so good for you but at least you made it at home weekend breakfasts!