Apple Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping.

We made a coffee cake, not something we normally do. Not something we even do rarely. Not because I don't like coffee cake, I do, I like it very much, I just never have a reason to make it.

My mother made coffee cakes. Her coffee cakes were usually made out of Bisquick, that was the hot thing then to make coffee cake, self crusting pies where the ingredients were all whirled up in the blender and some how the crust part sank to the bottom with out having to make a separate crust and drop biscuits out of Bisquick. She had a reason to make coffee cakes, she had coffee parties. Coffee parties were where the neighbor ladies would dress up and go to someones house for coffee and visit for a good hour. This was back in the day when moms didn't work and we all went to school. I don't even think there was homeschooling back then. Yes, I know people where homeschooling in the 80's but my childhood started quite a while before then. If there was any one who homeschool they didn't live in our area. In our school gum chewing could get you in trouble, teachers could still whack you with a ruler, we didn't learn about evolution, Christmas and Easter break was called just that Christmas and Easter break, and gasp, we prayed in school. And this was at the public school not a private one. So our mothers where home making coffee cakes and chatting it up with the neighbors. This is probably the biggest factor in why our neighborhood was so close knit, the people had personal relationships with each other, not like now where we wave as they go by on the road and call it good.

I don't have coffee parties. Most of my friends don't work, not full time anyway, but they are all busy homeschooling their kids. All the rest of the women I know go to work everyday. Facebook is as close as I come to frequently connecting with friends and that is very segmented and blurbish. I should have a party, I wonder if anyone would have time to come. Hmmm.

If they do here is the recipe for our coffee cake. I don't use Bisquick so this is the real deal.

Apple Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping

1 1/2 cup flour

2 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup melted shortening

1 1/2 cups chopped apple.

Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl beat egg, add milk and melted shortening. Pour all at once into dry ingredients; then add apples and mix well. Put in well greased 8x8 pan.

Streusel topping:

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tbsp. soft butter

Blend first three ingredients. Work in butter to make it crumbly. Sprinkle over batter.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until both cake and apples are done.