Simple Coffee Cake

This coffee cake recipe was my Great Grandma Ruth's go to cake when last minuet visitors would pop over. Great Grandma was born in Norway and came to American in her early twenties. She loved baking and was a professional seamstress. And ALWAYS had desserts readily available for friends and family.

Plain Coffee Cake

 Blend dry ingredients with butter,until crumbly.

Reserve 2/3 cup of this mixture to put on top of cakes right before baking.

 Add eggs and milk.

 A generous teaspoon of almond extract.

 Put dry butter crumbles on before placing in the oven. 

 Should look like this when done.

**This recipe makes TWO 8" cakes. Typically I slice the one cake in half and put filling in, but for this post I made one cake using both cakes**

 Choose any kind of filling, raspberry or poppyseed are the popular choices in our house.

 For a quick glaze mix one egg white with desired amount of powdered sugar.

Here is the Recipe as told by my Great Aunt Nancy:

3 Cups Flour

2 Cups Sugar

3 Teaspoons baking powder

1/4 Teaspoon salt

Cut in 6 tablespoons of butter.

Reserve 2/3 cups of this mixture to place on top of cake right before baking.

Whisk together the following:

3 Whole eggs

1 cup of milk

2 teaspoons almond flavor

Mix together with dry ingredients until moist.

Bake 20-25 minuets in a 375 degree oven in two eight inch pans. Be sure to butter and flour pans.

Hope this quick, and cheap, recipe can also be enjoyed with your family.

Cheers,

Deb

Backyard Wonderland

We have acquired an awesome backyard with our new house. The previous owner went with a Japanese garden theme, which means we were left with a major project. The garden has beautiful bones, but had been left neglected for about a year! So everyday we are uncovering new little quirks about our special place. Our yard has a pond, which is getting the best of me,its going to have to be reworked since there is some sort of leak in the pipe line, which means it drains completely when pump is running. Sigh.

Cheers,
Deb

A Smeg Is Born

With long pauses and no posts , I finally have some things to share. My family and I have moved into our new home, and it seems like every week new goodies are arriving. Our new Smeg fridge has finally arrived after being stuck in customs for almost TWO WEEKS! Friends keep asking me where I bought it from, how is it arriving, and how much does it cost? 

 

I found our Smeg on eBay, there is a store/dealer in Buffalo New York that sells only fancy off the wall appliances including ones from overseas (ours came from Italy). A few years back Sears did offer a limited selection of them for a few months, but the prices were through the roof. I stuck with this shop, who helped us through the loooong wait for our precious fridge to arrive to middle of nowhere Illinois.

 This orange gem arrived from freight company, that normally does not do door step delivery, but since the man bringing the box was so curious about it he was very eager to see what was, it he gladly helped my husband bring it up to the house.

 Okay, okay so now the big question, how much does it cost to have a fridge from Italy? $2,100. I know,expensive right? But, this is our DREAM house and I want it to always feel like a special fun place for our family. Since we live in central Illinois, having an orange fridge makes us the talk of the town.

Cheers,

Deb

New Home Wish List

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

To keep myself motivated while we live in a friends condo, until we move into our new home. I am sharing a few things that I have been coveting. A girl can dream, right?

Cheers,

Deb

Coming Soon.....

I've been away for a while, but I will be back in a couple weeks to share some more adventures!

Momma's Time Out

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, I had a very delightful weekend up at my folks place in the burbs. This trip I was lucky enough to have a good chunk of time to myself, while Wolf had some one on one with grandma. For my special alone time I hit up the Crate and Barrel outlet store, folks it was amazing. I love Crate and Barrel to begin with, so an outlet store was a dream come true! I have to admit I went shopping there with one thing in mind, fabric. Not just any ol' fabric, but Marimekko fabric, some of the prettiest fabric in all the land. Normally the fabric runs from around $50 per yard, but at the outlet store it is a mere $5.95. Needless to say, I had died and went to fabric heaven. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the pretties I got to see.

Cheers,

Deb

Inst-A-Deb

Happy Friday friends! Enjoy my Inst-A-Deb recap of my colorful wardrobe  Clogs,cardi's and vintage art smocks make up this stay at home momma's closet.

Cheers,
Deb