I'm no Betty Crocker, but...

Several years ago, a reproduction edition of the original 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book was released, and boy, I was all over that. I love the mid century stuff, including cook books, apparently. And it wasn't cheap. This cook book is a little lot dated, using enough butter, cream, white flour and sugar to make Paula Deen do a double take. It's also full of recipes for beef this, pork that, and even liver whadyaknow, which is pretty useless for us because we are a family of vegetarians. But I'll tell you what this cookbook is full of: history. Recipes for buckles and canned preserves and all kinds of stuff that only grandma made. And I love that.

....And that, my friends, is how I fell in love with the coffee cake. There's a whole page of variations on the coffee cake (including one with candied fruit...how's that for dated?!?!): orange coffee cake, blueberry buckle, pineapple...and so I got to experimenting. I'm one of those 'a pinch of this, a little of that' kind of cooks...not really big on the recipes much. I change them around, substitute like crazy, and alter them beyond recognition so the chances are greater that people will actually eat the food. And this is the thing I love about The Betty Crocker: 'she' always uses a 'Key Recipe', and you're free to go on your merry way adding and subtracting ingredients to your heart's content.

So here's my version of the Betty Crocker Prize Coffee Cake, altered a bit to make it more healthy, but still totally 50's delish.

Mix together:

1 1/2 c.sugar, type of your choosing (can also use part maple syrup, yum)

1/4 c. applesauce

1/4 c. butter or margarine

2 eggs

Stir in:

1 c. milk (soy, dairy, rice, whatever)

Sift together and stir in:

3 c. whole wheat pastry flour (if I've run out, I also do 1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat in a pinch)

4 tsp. baking powder

Oven: 375 degrees, bake in a greased 9X13 pan for 20-30 minutes (sorry, I'm a keep-an-eye and nose-on-it baker, I rarely pay attention to time. See what works in your oven).

My favorite alterations:

Cinnamon Coffee Cake: Mix 1 c. brown sugar and 3 tsps cinnamon. Put half the batter in the pan, spread, and sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture on the top. Then spread the rest of the batter and the rest of the cinnamon mixture on top of that. You get a delicious layer of cinnamon brown sugar in the middle that my kids call 'just like Starbucks, but way better').

Blueberry Coffee Cake: I do the same technique as above...spread in half the batter, then sprinkle about 2 cups blueberries (if you use frozen, defrost them in a bowl of warm water first)...and the rest of the batter goes on top. You can also just stir the blueberries in. Same baking time, etc.

Apple Coffee Cake: Same halfsies technique as above, but I thinly slice peeled apples and lay them in a layer in the middle of the two layers of batter. I would say I use a cup and a half or two cups of sliced apples- this depends on how appley you want your coffee cake.

My fantasy is to try layering in a jar of raspberry preserves...but I haven't done it, yet. If you decide to, please come back and leave a comment letting me know how it came out!

Also, if you're interested in The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, here she is.

..and this one's ring-bound. Awesome. Mine's not, and falling apart....

My friend Eilyne is hosting 'Food Fridays', which this post is a part of. She also has a retro theme going this week, with her Aunt Hilma's recipe for corn bread pudding. So hop on over there and check it out! You can find Eilyne here .