Cinnamon Ribbon Breakfast Cake

Making cupcakes started my love for baking. In order to get people to like me, I decided to regularly supply people in the residence halls with home, er, dorm-baked cupcakes. My beginnings were somewhat rudimentary as I fiddled with an old/uncalibrated oven, measured with individual plastic pudding containers and mixed my batter with a fork. The cupcakes were ridiculously moist, (the box states there is pudding in the mix, and I interpreted it as a suggestion to ADD pudding to the mix...), which made up for the numerous lumps of flour that would end up baked into the finish product.

From there, I started making variations on simple cake mix cupcakes. I'd use the mix batter to create Oreo cupcakes, peanut butter surprise cupcakes, and other recipes from the Cake Mix Doctor, but as I started to follow more baking blogs, I realized I needed to say goodbye to my boxed friends.

Which leads me to this coffee cake. I would always make a breakfast cake by said Dr., but the recipe called for yellow cake mix, and instant pudding mix, blah blah blah. I just knew that there was a better way, and thanks to HowSweetEats, there is!

 *timing is approximate as I let mine bake for an hour and ended up with a slightly over-baked edges and a very dark cinnamon stripe as seen here. When in doubt, start testing with your handy dandy toothpick when the top is golden brown. 

Cinnamon Ribbon Breakfast Cake
Adapted from HowSweetEats

Ingredients
for the cake
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup milk

for the filling
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

for the glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small mixing bowl combine the 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and the 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts. Set aside. Prepare a bundt pan with nonstick spray, and drop the remaining 1/4 cup of walnuts into the bottom of the pan, (which will then position them at the top of your cake).

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the 2 1/2 cups of AP flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the 1/2 cup of softened butter with the 1 1/2 cups of sugar. When the mixture is light and fluffy, add one egg at a time, combining well between each addition. Incorporate the 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

Next, you will add half of the dry ingredients to the sugar mixture. Stir together before adding the cup of milk. Stir again, and add the rest of the dry mixture, combine well.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared bundt pan over the walnuts. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar filling into the pan forming a layer over the batter. Add the remaining cake batter making sure to spread it out evenly. Bake for 50-55 minutes, turning once halfway through.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife along the edges to make sure the cake will not stick to the pan as you flip it. Flip onto your desired surface and cool completely before adding glaze.

To prepare the glaze, sift the cup of powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl. Add the milk and whisk together, add the teaspoon of vanilla. Reach desired consistency by adding powdered sugar to thicken or more milk to make the glaze runnier.

Pour glaze over the top of the cooled bundt cake allowing it to drip down the sides.