Yogurt Coffee Cake

When I got out of town for a few days, I have fairly accurate picture of what goes on in the house while I'm gone.

Single Man Mayem ensues.

Let me explain:

Netflix viewing is surely restricted to episodes of Entourage, Family Guy, and various manly action-thriller movies that involve explosions, guns, and large sums of money.

Internet news is limited to ESPN--hockey scores specifically.

Shaving? Who needs it.

And food? I could right a book on the diet of bachelors. I have no doubt there are a lot of fried potatoes, beer, and chocolate chip cookies on the menu.

Last week, I traveled out of town for the annual state Social Work conference. Prior to leaving, I did my wifely duty of preparing several dishes for Adam to eat in my absence. Although the man does at least 50% of the cooking in our house (if not more), I know that when I'm gone and Single Man Mahem occurs, his cooking skills go out the window...right along with his desire to tune into Grey's Anatomy with me.

For breakfast, I created a variation on his mom's fantastic coffee cake recipe. This delightful breakfast ring is moist and sweet--almost like pound cake for breakfast. I made a huge bowl of nutty crumb topping to layer in the middle and cover the top. I could eat that crumb topping straight out of the bowl if someone let me.

Did I need to tell you that the cake stand was empty when I returned home?

Yogurt Coffee Cake

(recipe adapted from Adam's mom, Kathy)

This is one of my go-to company-is-coming breakfasts. Apparently, it's now also the breakfast I make for Adam when I go out of town. I need to start making it for me!

Cake Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 - 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups flour

Streusel Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 2 - 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 5 TBSP cold butter
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Glaze Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• about 2 TBSP milk
• splash of vanilla

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and coat a 9 " tube pan with cooking spray.

2) In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for the cake. Add eggs and beat well. Fold in the sour cream and vanilla. Sift together remaining dry ingredients for the cake and fold into the batter.

3) To prepare the streusel, combine the brown sugar, flour, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut in butter and "stir" with a fork until crumbly. Stir in nuts.

4) Pour half of cake batter in the tube pan. Sprinkle with half the crumb topping. Pour remaining batter on top and sprinkle with remaining crumb topping. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes, or until a lightly browned a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5) Combine glaze ingredients in a small bowl, adding more sugar or liquid to reach desired consistency (as needed). Drizzle over the top of the cake.