Classic Cinnamon-Nut Coffee Ring

I had attempted to make a Honey Wheat loaf on Easter Sunday, and while I don't have any photos of the attempted project, lets just say its one of those situations in which you get really mad for a day, and then laugh about it with friends the following days after.

I had started it around 11:30, and put it in the warm oven to rise. Because we had to go to our families Easter get together, I figured if I left it in there, by the time I got back, it would've risen and all I would have to do is bake it. We got back around 830pm, and it was well risen and ready to go. It looked gorgeous all fluffed up in the pan perfectly, and 25 minutes at 375 degrees - we'd have one yummy, beautiful loaf of Honey Wheat bread.

If anyone else has a husband, or a husband to be - you can probably understand whats about to happen next. I have officially learned that Men love to touch things, it must be their primary sense, because future DH loves to touch things and will determine whether or not he likes something based only on texture and feel half the time.

Back to the bread - sitting there on top of the stove looking soft, fluffed up and ready to go.... future DH had to touch it.... and the poor delicate, innocent loaf deflated into a flat dense hockey puck. Into the trash it went to bakery heaven - never be baked at Grace Point Road.

Moving on, our next official recipe would be Classic Cinnamon-Nut Coffee Ring. This was a pretty easy and simple recipe to make and came with the option of using a variety of nuts of your choosing, and the option to add chocolate chips. I chose Walnuts and Nestle miniature chocolate chips this time around.

The batter had basic cake ingredients, though less butter then I would expect. The mixture of cinnamon and sugar had me curious as to how it would turn out - as I'd never tried anything with the mixture of the two. It required to build similar to the steps of a muffin, mixing the wet and dry ingredients in two separate bowls and then combining with minimal mixing. It came out very light and fluffy, almost the middle ground between a foamy meringue and a cake batter.

The middle mixture is where the nuts and chocolate come it, mixed with melted butter and sugar - it smelled good enough to just eat out of the bowl.

I am embarrassed to say that my ring was indeed a cake, as I do not own a bundt pan. How embarrassing to be such a fan of baking and not own one of the essentials to many baked goods!

Layers of cake batter and filling layers two times upon each other into a 13"x9" pan finishing off with the topping, and into the oven it went for 45 minutes. It baked beautifully, smelled amazing, and was pretty easy to complete - as long as you have plenty of mixing bowls.

With a huge cup of joe, a nice slice of Classic Cinnamon-Nut Coffee Ring - I can't see a day starting out nothing but...sweet.