YUM! |
So! This is a delicious, easy cake to make that I created because of the fact that I always crave cinnamon rolls. For those of you who don't bake often, here's the deal: making cinnamon rolls takes FOREVER. You have to make the dough, then wait like 2 hours for it to rise, and then roll it out, etc. and bake it. It is a pain and by the time I finish making cinnamon rolls I never want to eat them because they took so long (I guess that might be a good thing, though!). Anyway, I started to think of how I could recreate the flavors of a cinnamon roll in an easy and less time-consuming way, and this is what I came up with! Let me warn you up front: although this is not ooey-gooey like a cinnamon roll, it is delicious and makes the whole house smell like cinnamon, so if you don't want to eat this, you shouldn't make it. Once it's made, it's addictive and will be eaten up really quickly. I think this would be a great cake to serve at a brunch. This cake tastes best when warm (just like a cinnamon roll) so I recommend heating up each piece before you eat it (or just eat it right out of the oven)!
Ingredients:
Ingredients |
1 box of yellow cake mix (a butter cake mix would also work well)
4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
Onto the baking:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease a 13x9 baking pan.
3. Mix the cake mix, eggs, oil, and sour cream together until there are no lumps.
Wet ingredients. |
Cake batter all mixed up! |
Batter in the baking dish. |
5. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture together in a separate bowl. (P.S. It's also delicious if you want to add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts into this mixture and blend it into the cake.)
6. Sprinkle the cinnamon/ brown sugar mixture on top of the cake batter. There should be a relatively thick layer all over the batter.
Brown sugar snowball dusted with cinnamon! |
All blended up. |
Brown sugar/ cinnamon on top of the batter. |
The final all mixed up cake. |
Knife swirls to mix batter and cinnamon. |
Close-up of the mixed cake. |
The cooling cake. |
Close-up: look at all that cinnamon-y goodness! |
Frosting Ingredients. |
1/4 cup of unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon of salt
4 or 5 tablespoons of milk
10. Beat together the cream cheese, butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Slowly add the milk until you hit the desired consistency. (I used 4 tablespoons).
Frosting ingredients ready to be blended. |
Blended up frosting. (Sorry I know it's hard to see; I shouldn't have used a white bowl!) |
The completed cake! |
A hot, cinnamon-y piece, ready for the eating! |