A Delicious Cake Recipe

Tomorrow our son and his wife will be joining us for lunch after church.  I always try to have something in the crockpot so we can come home and set the table and then eat.  No one likes to wait until 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon to eat. 

I keep it simple.  Tomorrow it will be sloppy joes, cheesy potatoes, steamed broccoli, fruit salad and a Cherry Coffeecake for dessert.  What makes this meal simple?  The night before prep.  I have already browned the hamburger and added the sauce ingredients and they are chilling in the fridge.  The frozen hash browns for the cheesy potatoes are thawing overnight in the fridge and I have already mixed the soup, milk, cheese and spices and poured this into a container and it is in the fridge also.  Tomorrow when I get up in the morning I will simply pour the sloppy joe mixture into one crockpot, put the hash browns and cheesy sauce in another crockpot and set them both on low. 

The broccoli is the Steamfresh kind and it will steam in the microwave.  The fruit salad is just fruit cocktail mixed with some canned pineapple.  It will be a breeze to get this meal on the table after church.

Also, in keeping with my frugal mindset, it is an inexpensive meal.  What makes it inexpensive is that the ingredients have been purchased on sale at one time or another. 

Now for the Cherry Coffeecake recipe.  But first, back in November I purchased several cans of name brand Cherry Pie Filling for only 75 cents a can.  It was on sale and I had a lot of coupons so I was able to get about 10 cans.  Cherry Pie Filling is usually over $2.00 a can so this was an excellent buy.  My husband loves Cherry pie and I love to bake pie for him but I also love this coffeecake recipe and so does my family. 

Cherry Coffeecake

Batter:

1 egg
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
milk
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Filling:

1 can cherry pie filling (blueberry will work just as well)

Topping:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup flour
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Break the egg in a 1 cup measuring cup and add the extract.  To this add enough milk to make 1 cup.  Set aside.  Cream the margarine (or butter) with the sugar.  Add the milk mixture and mix.  Then add the dry ingredients and mix with an electric mixer for about 1 minute until well blended and smooth.  Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan.  Dollop the cherry pie filling over the top of the batter.   Sprinkle the topping over the cherry pie filling.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

For the topping:  mix the margarine (or butter) with the sugar.  Add the flour (and nuts) to form crumbs.  Sprinkle over the pie filling.