Morning has Broken Coffee Cake

I've never been good with odds - and I've never been good at singing - but explaining these facts to grown-ups when you're a kid doesn't work - no matter how urgent and bright you are. Furnace Brook Middle School Staff was no exception.

It's not everyday that the 6th grade gets to participate in S.I.D. (Student Interest Days) - in which you get to have 2 periods of learning scratched off the roster in order to prepare for concerts and plays and newspaper activities and the only BAD thing is that you don't get to choose where they put you. You get to make a list of preferences like Thespian Club, Slimnastics or Yearbook but it really doesn't matter because I got stuck in the Chamber Singing QUARTET which featured Laurie Bunting who had bad breath and we'd sit there around some man with a guitar and sing songs about hope and freedom and pancakes. I would sit there and remember how I didn't even get accepted into 4th grade glee club and now I was being taught note-reading and breath support even though Mark Dunderdale kept calling it BREAST support. And so Mr Heath - the head of all of this - says we have to perform at the Annual Spring Concert Benefit for the Booster Club and I was relieved because something FUN was FINALLY going to happen but when I got up on stage in my new dress and white tights and the first chords to Morning Has Broken sang out from the piano I looked at the other three people on stage and started to move my mouth though no sound came out and Mr Heath starts giving us these googley eyes across the piano bench like we better sing louder or ELSE - and all I could hear was Laurie Bunting chirping away and pretty soon she even stopped and so we all just stood there opening and moving our mouths to a song without words and listened to Mr Heath play a solo on the piano.

MORNING HAS BROKEN COFFEE CAKE
(Grandma Anna Seering - altered a bit from Mrs Kindy)

* this is how my grandma TOLD me to make it on 3/18/01. Basically it is a dictation*

Creme together 1 cup butter - 1 1/2 cups sugar and 2 eggs. Whip it up good withan electric mixer

Fold in 1 cup sour cream - gently with mixer

Then add:
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 baking powder
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all up - it will be very thick

Now it's time to make the nutty mixture!

3/4 cups chopped nuts mixed with 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon

Grease and flour a bundt cake pan and alternate the batter with the nut mixture 3 times - ending with the nuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-60 minutes - depending on the stove

My grandma would like to eat this on Christmas with some smoked sausage from Usinger's Butcher Shop in Milwaukee.