Banana Rum Coffee Cake w/Brown Sugar Topping & Rum Icing

I like bananas. I really do. So imagine my surprise when I opened up the cupboard and found a bunch of brown-spotted bananas. Lucky for my family, I know how to use up brown bananas. Why don't I keep them on the counter you ask? It's a long story. Anyway, I'm continuing with the rum theme because I need to use up the rum extract that I bought for the previous coffee cake. If you don't like rum, you can always use vanilla or maple extract. Also, I opened up my brand new fridge and realized that I had no buttermilk and no sour cream. So, I used some honey flavored Zoi Greek yogurt because that's what I had on hand. It's called "rummaging-through-the-fridge-and-the-cupboards-and-using-what-I-find" method of baking.

Vanilla Buttermilk Coffee Cake w/Brown Sugar Bacon Topping & Maple Icing

It's been a while since my last post - a long while, and for that I'm sorry. I had run out of inspiration and other things were going on at home. But I'm back and I'm back with bacon! I don't want to tell you how to run your kitchen, but I recommend cooking the bacon beforehand like perhaps the night before. Since I used an entire 12oz. package of bacon (yes you read that correctly), I baked it in the oven so it wouldn't take forever to cook. An entire package of bacon might seem excessive, but when you consider how much bacon shrinks during cooking you see why I used that much. Feel free to adjust the amount of bacon.

Apple Cider Pecan Coffee Cake w/Apple Cider Icing

Pumpkin pie, hot cocoa, apples, and apple cider are all Fall favorites. Well, at least they're my favorites. I wish I could say that I lovingly make homemade hot spiced apple cider from freshly juiced apples...but I can't. The truth is that I buy instant hot apple cider just like I buy instant hot cocoa. I use the Alpine Spiced Apple Cider. You can usually find it next to the hot cocoa at the grocery store. This coffee cake is inspired by my husband's apple cider pancakes: it's yummy and not too sweet, which is just how I like my coffee cake. The key here is to not reconstitute the spiced cider mix. In other words, don't add water; just add the mix directly to the dry ingredients.

Brown Sugar Swirl Coffee Cake w/Brown Sugar Icing

I've always liked a simple brown sugar streusel topping on a coffee cake. It's kind of hard to have a streusel topping on a bundt cake, so I thought I would move the streusel to the center and make a swirl. The icing is my second brown sugar icing recipe. For this one, I used dark brown sugar because I think it has a richer flavor than light brown sugar, but go ahead and use whichever one you have.

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake w/Brown Sugar Icing

Sour cream coffee cakes are my favorite. Hands down I think they are the best coffee cakes because they are so moist. There's nothing worse than a dry coffee cake - except maybe a warm beer or cold french fries. Chocolate chip cookies are also my favorite. Combining the two is pure bliss. Adding brown sugar icing is just...icing on the cake. Sorry.