Holy Heck It's Hot.

Well, I guess I asked for it.  I've been taunting my poor ol' brother with reports of our nice, cool weather up here in the Pacific Northwest, and then, BAM!, next thing you know, it's 102 degrees outside my house.  Cripes.  Even at that, Oklahoma's 113 degree weather still makes my 102 seem kinda wimpy and unworthy of complaint.

I do hope that they get beyond this dry spell and that the fires ease up.  I worry about my family, friends and the people that are out there fighting the fires in what is already extremely hot weather. 

So, this evening, I finally baked an easy and delicious new recipe.  It's from Pillsbury's Prize Winning Bake Off magazine and it's called Streusel Spice Cake.  Here's a pretty picture of the finished cake.

It's super easy, using a cake mix (which I usually avoid because I often don't have cake mixes handy).  Here's the recipe:

Cake:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup softened butter
5 eggs
1/4 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

Filling:
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2-3 Tablespoons milk
    (NOTE:  you can just use 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you don't have vanilla bean paste)

Heat oven to 350.  Grease and lightly flour bundt pan (I use the baking version of Pam). 

Beat together the cake mix, milk, butter and eggs.  Stir in coconut and nuts.  Stir in the melted chocolate, using a spoon or spatula to marble the batter.  Here's what mine looked like.   And I must apologize because I'm having a particularly difficult time editing my pictures tonight - so there's all sorts of glare and extra stuff in them that I don't necessarily want to include.  Blah!

In small bowl, mix the ingredients for the filling.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the filling. 

Poor 1/2 of the batter (about 2 cups) into the prepared bundt pan.  Sprinkle the filling on top of the batter. 

Poor remainder of the batter over the filling.  Top batter with the reserved 1/2 cup filling (hence the "streusel"!).

Bake in 350 degree oven for 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for about 5-10 minutes and then flip onto cake round or serving dish to allow cake to cool completely. 

Once cooled, prepare glaze.  Mix all ingredients, adding just enough of the milk to get desired consistency.  Spoon/drizzle over the cake. 

This particular pan made a beautiful cake and the glaze just slid into the tracks and made it even more pretty!!  The crunch of the nuts and the coconut give this cake nice texture and flavor. 

Easy peasy.

Now that the house has cooled off (yes, I did make a brilliant decision as to when to bake a cake in terms of the weather...), I believe it may be time for me to hit the hay.  I can't believe it's already another Monday tomorrow.  To that, I say, "Blah."

Stay cool, peeps!!