December 8 - Green Coffee Cake

Every year, for many years, I made a homemade, from scratch, sour cream coffee cake for Christmas morning. It was a recipe made out of tradition more than anything else.  One year, on a lark, I made a pistachio cake recipe that was a relic from the 70's.  My kids LOVED it. They named it the Green Coffee Cake, and it has now replaced the time intensive sour cream coffee cake.  It is delicious AND really easy to make.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to give it a try!

For the cake:

1 18.25 oz. box yellow cake mix
1 3.4 oz. box instant pistachio pudding
1 c. sour cream (you can use light if you want)
4 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil

For the filling:

1/2 c. chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans) you want these finely chopped
4 T. granulated sugar
1 t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl blend together the cake and pudding mix. Add the sour cream, eggs and oil. Mix well. In a small bowl, mix together the nuts, sugar and cinnamon.  Pour half of the cake batter into a greased and floured (or use Bakers Joy) 10" tube pan. Put half of the nut mixture on the batter in the pan and press down lightly. Pour the remaining batter in the pan and top with with remaining nut mixture. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool in pan for about 10-15 minutes and then invert onto a cooling rack.

Happy Baking!!!