Miss Cupcake: Coffee Cake: Upside-Down Version

Fail. This is the word that most correctly describes my recent baking venture. Epic Fail. I've been quite obsessed with a blog called http://www.picky-palate.com/ She's a mother of two, and her cooking style is so much like mine. Fun, cute, and easy. So, as I was searching through her blog one day...I stumbled upon this. Starbuck's Coffee Cake.(retrieved by a friend of hers.) Now, I'm not sure about you...but Starbuck's baked goods are amazing! So, I figured it was worth a try.

Well, I'll start with the recipe...and we will go from there.

Coffee Cake: Upside-Down Version

Items Needed:

1 yellow cake mix
oil, eggs, and water called for on the box
2 sticks cold salted butter
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla
1 3/4 cup brown sugar (slightly packed)
Powdered Sugar for dusting (I kind of forgot about that...oops)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray 9*13 pan with cooking spray.

2. Make cake mix according to the package. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes or until slightly set.

3. While cake is in the oven, make the "crumb topping." Combine cold butter, flour, cinnamon, vanilla, and brown sugar with electric mixer until fine and crumbly. Set aside.

4. When cake is slightly set, take out of the oven and immediately crumble the topping over top. Return to the oven and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until topping looks more "baked."

5. Let cool, cut into small pieces, and top with powdered sugar.

So, I did all that! Everything that recipe said...I did. But, this is what happened. Yeah, not what I thought it would look like either. The words..yellow puddle of raw-ness came to mind. So, what did I do...I threw it back into the oven for another ten minutes....and....

No, no...that didn't seem to work. It just got more brown and hard on the top...and gooey inside. Not baked, raw. So, I thought that maybe if I cut it into pieces...the heat would find it's way inside the cake and "bake" the inside. I mean...that sounded logical to me...I thought that I would give it a go.

Yeah....no....just got more brown, and after 1 hour and 20 minutes in the oven. I just gave up. Just completely gave up. So I took it out....and waited. I thought about what would be the best way to get rid of this concoction before any one knew that I had produced something that wasn't really up to par with Miss Cupcake. But, no. Mother walked in...and she saw it. She saw that ugly mass of crunchy and raw. So willingly she said that she would try it.....I didn't think that this would end well.

So, I tried to cut it. Nope. Didn't work. Except that I realized the outside edges were actually baked and the inside pieces were just messes of cooked filling. See, I realized what happened. Number one. I didn't bake the initial cake long enough. So when i put the topping on....the cake overtook the topping and sunk to the bottom. Quite a sad story actually......but....would'nt you know...those side pieces were semi-decent looking.

So, mom tried a sample...and her eyes rolled back into the side of her head. I was just about to call the hospital...when I realized that her eyes were eyes of coffee cake pleasure. She said it was wonderful. I looked at her and kind of gave her the "are you kidding me" look. I tried it. Then, i tried some more just to make sure. Then another little bit, and I realized that my disaster was an amazing new novelty in all things coffee cake....BEHOLD, the upside down cofee cake.

I think that this was my ONLY piece that kind of resembled coffee cake. Why don't you head on over to pick palate and see what it was actually supposed to like.