I had to distract myself from the snake guts

Yesterday morning there was a strange thumping sound outside our front door. I ignored it because one of the neighbor kids likes to hang out on our porch for hours on end in hope that Aeryn will suddenly be able to play when I've already told him {insert reason here} and that she'd come over when she could. He often makes a fair bit of noise, so I naturally assumed it was him.

Little did I know my super-uber-awesome neighbor from across the street was hacking a snake to bits in my flower bed.

The little bugger actually bit said neighbor's little boy a week or so ago and they got to do the whole ER/make sure it wasn't poisonous thing. It was a traumatic experience for the family as you can imagine. So he made darn sure that little bugger wasn't going to bite anyone else. I'm glad actually. Since we haven't cleaned up the pieces yet, I decided to dive into my favorite form of distraction.

Dee-lish! That's all I have to say.



This is one of our favorite, simple, standby recipes that frankly I don't make nearly often enough. If your family is small like ours, halve the recipe for a single loaf pan but do yourself a favor and use the full amount of streussel. Mouths will be happy!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sour cream

Filling: Mix 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup finely chopped nuts, and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease tube pan or two loaf pans. Combine butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs in large mixer bowl. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes or 300 vigorous strokes (upper body workout!!). Mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt alterately with sour cream.

For tube pan: Spread 1/3 batter in pan and sprinkle with 1/3 of filling. Continue layers until all batter & filling is used.
For loaf pans: Spread 1/4 batter in each pan and sprinkle each with 1/4 of the filling. Repeat once.

Bake about 60 minutes or until the tried and true toothpick test yields a cooked cake. Cool slightly in pan before removing.


***Almost exact from the Betty Crocker Cookbook Copyright 1969. It's old. And fantastic. And almost missing it's cover.