Blackberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This simple cake makes a wonderful addition to your summer brunch table. Here in Oregon, we are harvesting blackberries and Marionberries, and this year's crop is abundant and flavorful. Save for raspberries, this year's berry crop has been disappointing, so it's nice to know that blackberries have also managed to escape this summer's cane fruit curse. I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website and it looked so good I had to give it a try. It did not disappoint. I must admit I used fresh berries rather than the frozen ones recommended in the original recipe. I was afraid that thawed blackberries would lose their shape and bleed into the cake batter, so I used still firm, fresh from the field, berries for my coffee cake. I know that those of you who try this recipe will be pleased with your results. The cake stays moist for several days and it freezes beautifully, so it can be made well ahead of serving and free you to enjoy brunch with your family and friends. You'll find the cake is sweet enough to please the most ardent sweet tooth, but it is not cloying. Here is how it is made.

Oatmeal Waffles with Warm Cinnamon Syrup

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This past weekend we attended an open house at a hellebore nursery here in Eugene. Things did not go as we planned. Although we were at the nursery by 11 am, all the hellebores had been sold. To make matters worse, the restaurant at which we planned to have lunch was packed, and the earliest table they could promise involved an hour wait. The Silver Fox, who waits for no man, much less a restaurant table, decided, without asking me, that a Bergfeld Brunch should be the order of the day. I made sage sausage on Friday, so the protein portion of the brunch was covered, but because there were six of us the rest of the meal was problematic. Fortunately, I remembered this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. It's been a go-to recipe in my kitchen that I use whenever I have a large group to feed. The recipe is so simple that I knew I had all the ingredients needed to make the waffles without making a mad dash to the grocery store. The only fruit I had was apples, but I thought I could make a crispless apple crisp that would be a perfect foil to the sage sausage and hearty pancakes. Fortunately, the meal came together quickly and we all enjoyed the unplanned brunch. One of these days, I may even start speaking to the Silver Fox again. These waffles are terrific and the warm cinnamon syrup takes them over the top. I know you'll enjoy the ease with which they come together and the compliments you'll receive when you serve them will make you a true devotee. Here is how they are made.

Apple Streusel Coffee Cake

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...We are several weeks shy of one year in our new home. While we love the new place, it's about 1500 square feet smaller than the house on the hill, so it has become especially important for us to keep an eye on objects and determine if they are worth the space they occupy. Nowhere is that more important than in the kitchen, and at this time of year, my personal challenge is to work through the contents of my freezer and pantry before things pass their sell date or are impossibly freezer burned. I always find something that surprises me, and this year, while turning the pantry, I found three 1-quart jars of apple pie filling that I had put-by two years ago. For reasons that escape me now, I decided to bring them with us when we moved last year. I could have used them to make apple pie, but I wanted to do something a little different, so I went searching for some new recipes that used prepared pie filling. The recipe I'm featuring tonight was develop by Nancy Dynes and I found it on her blog, Tattered Treasures. I know that those of you who have a sweet tooth will enjoy this coffee cake, but I must warn the rest of you that it is sweet. I used one-third the glaze that was suggested in the recipe and that was plenty for our taste. The cake is simple to make and the use of canned/jarred pie filling makes quick work of it preparation. I do hope you will try this. It is a nice brunch cake to serve to family and good friends and it is lovely when served warm. Here is how it's made.

Table for Two - Buttermilk Waffles

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Waffles have been a fixture on American tables for years. Thomas Jefferson so loved the waffles he had in France and Belgium that he had irons shipped to his home in Virginia, so he could continue to enjoy them. Pancakes remained more popular with most folks because no special equipment was needed to make them and recipes for their preparation were generally less involved. All that changed during the 1950's as wages and lifestyles improved. Small appliances and gadgets swept the nation and middle class kitchens proudly displayed a "wired" array that included electric mixers, frying pans and waffle irons. For a period of time, waffles were the craze for Sunday night supper. Folks who had a large meal at 1 or 2 in the afternoon still needed a light supper and waffles were a perfect and novel solution for many families. Perhaps it was too much of a good thing, but whatever the root cause, the waffle craze ran its course and irons fell into disuse and became found objects in most homes. There has been, of late, a rash of new recipes for waffles, and some of them are really marvelous. Unfortunately, they do not lend themselves to quick preparation and they are scaled to feed way more than two people. The Silver Fox and I are children of the 50's, so it is no surprise that we love waffles. I've developed this recipe so the two of us could enjoy them whenever we have the urge. It takes about 30 minutes to get these to the table. They are delicious and I know those of you who try the recipe will love the waffles, so, please dust off your irons and give them a try. Here is how they are made.