Cinnamon Flop

When I cook breakfast I normally do something sweet to go along with our normal bacon, eggs, and fruit. Sometimes I'll do pancakes, or muffins, or homemade buttermilk biscuits drizzled with honey. Often times I'll make Cinnamon Flop. It's simple. It uses everyday ingredients that you already have in your home, and it's a great basic recipe that you can change to your heart's content. It's basically a coffee cake. You can make it for breakfast or take it to a friend's house for a chat over coffee.

I got this particular recipe from one of my church cookbooks.  If you don't have a church cookbook go to a thrift store or a garage sale and get one! They are priceless, especially the southern ones. Not that I'm biased or anything. So many of my recipes that I make come from recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation and then shared in a church fundraising cookbook. Yum!

Cinnamon Flop (Difficulty level 2.25)

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup milk
cinnamon to taste
1/2 stick of butter or margarine
1/4 c. brown sugar

Spray an 8 inch cake pan with cooking spray, and preheat your oven to 375. In a medium sized bowl combine your sugar and flour. I normally whisk it together and then use a wooden spoon for the rest of the mixing in this recipe. Add your milk, and stir it thoroughly. Pour batter into cake pan. Top with brown sugar, and sprinkle heavily with cinnamon. You can add more brown sugar if you think it needs it. Melt the butter. I normally melt it in my microwave for about 30 seconds, but you might want to cover it to keep it from making a mess. Pour the butter over the top. Don't worry if it doesn't completely cover the top of the batter. It'll work itself out while it cooks. Bake for 20 minutes. Top with powdered sugar, or a powdered sugar glaze, or don't top it at all. Cut and serve warm out of the pan. This is not one to flip over onto a cute plate. It will still to most cake pans because of the butter and melted sugar.

Variations: Throw 1/2 cup of raisins in the batter. Top with 1/2 cup or more of pecans or walnuts. Use cream cheese icing on top.

Kitchen tip: I have just found a new cooking spray with flour in it for baking, and I love it. You can find it at most stores now, and it's wonderful. Baker's choice has one as well as Pam. While the cinnamon flop will stick to the pan because of the butter and sugar, most other cakes or cookies won't.

Another Kitchen tip: If your brown sugar goes hard like mine did, there are a few methods to get it soft again. If you have a few days, put a couple of pieces of bread in your resealable bag or container. White bread is best for this. You'll find you have moist brown sugar and hard as a rock bread when you open it back up. If you need it moist now, put it in the microwave in a tupperware dish with a small bowl of water and heat for 1 minute at a time until it's moist again. Be careful, and watch it in the microwave because it could melt the sugar. After doing this mine when dry right after I had finished my recipe. That's probably because we're in Montana, and it's pretty dry right now. So I'll probably still put some bread in my container.

Y'all Enjoy!