I made this coffee cake, set out a collection of coffee and tea pods so everyone could pick their own favorite and set my table in a casual manner. Everyone started arriving just as the coffee cake was coming out of the oven. Once we all got over our jitters, everything went quite well. Two hours later, we were all chatting away like long lost friends!

This cake was a huge hit! Everyone loved the pumpkin spice flavor (see Quick Tip for the substitutions I had to make) and the cake was tender and crumbly – all of those good things I remembered about coffee cake. This coffee klatch may become a regular event on our street!

 

INGREDIENTS

For The Batter

4 eggs
¼ cup water
1 package yellow cake mix
1 package instant Pumpkin Spice pudding from Jello (see Quick Tip)
¼ cup oil
1 cup sour cream

For The Topping

½ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts

For The Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 to 3 Tablespoons whole milk

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Begin by mixing the eggs, water and cake mix together in a bowl until smooth.  Add in the pudding, oil, and sour cream and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl mix the topping ingredients well.

Grease a 9×13 inch pan.  (Because I wanted to be able to remove my coffee cake from the pan when it was done baking, I also added a piece of parchment paper to the inside of the pan.)

Put half of the batter in the pan and then add half of the topping.  Carefully layer the rest of the batter on top and finish the cake off with the rest of the topping.

Bake the cake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the cake tests done with a toothpick inserted in the center.  Cool it on a wire rack.

When the cake is no longer warm, mix up your glaze.  Whisk together the powdered sugar and pumpkin pie spice.  Add two tablespoons of milk.  If the glaze seems too thick, add more milk a teaspoon at a time.  Pour the glaze into a piping bag (or you can do as I did and pour it into a Ziploc bag and cut the tip off….works just as well.)  Drizzle the glaze over the top of the entire cake.

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Quick Tip:  If you cannot find the Pumpkin Spice instant pudding (I couldn’t!) just use vanilla instant pudding and add a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice mix to the cake batter. I also used ½ cup of pumpkin puree in place of ½ cup of the sour cream, because I wasn’t sure how much pumpkin flavor I was going to lose by not having the exact pudding called for in the recipe. It turned out great!

Recipe and image courtesy of Jamie at Anderson + Grant