You may have figured out from our Valentine’s Day cards and table, but my family did Valentine’s Day right when I was growing up.  We have a lot of tradition that goes into it, and as my mom said on facebook the other day: “I always wanted the kids to know, before they ever left in the morning, that no matter what happened at school with Valentine’s Day things (life can be difficult in school on Valentine’s Day) that they were LOVED!!!”  We did know and it is one of the reasons that even through the years I was single on Valentine’s Day, I loved the holiday!

This morning I got to share the holiday with my twin brother and his fiancee (soon to be wife in 2 weeks!) and my husband.  We did Valentine’s breakfast much as we had done as kids.  The most humorous part of the morning was me struggling to read my brothers AWFUL handwriting on his sweet valentine to my husband and me. For this highly traditional breakfast, we always have eggs, sausage and coffee cake.  My mom has made this super simple coffee cake (you better believe its easy if I can make it at 6:15am…)

My mom always made it in a heart shaped pan, so when I found this one at Crate and Barrel a few years ago on after Valentine’s day sale I snatched it up in anticipation of future Valentine’s Day breakfasts.  This baby is DELICIOUS (don’t worry, the four of us polished this guy off before work this morning).

Want to know how to make it?

I thought so…

Coffee Cake

1/4 Cup salad oil (I use EVOO because its what I have around)

1 beaten egg

1/2 Cup milk

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

To make this you have three bowls: dry ingredients: flour, sugar baking powder, salt

Wet ingredients: egg, oil, milk

and your topping.  For the topping I add everything in except butter and then mix your butter in last.

Stir the melted butter in until it coats everything and some of it will start sticking together in clumps (ignore the fuzzy picture, apparently I am not a good photographer that early in the morning!)

Now set that aside and mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients together. If your wet ingredients have been sitting for a minute you will have to remix them since oil and milk separate if left alone (as they are in the picture above). Pour that into your greased pan.  Then add the topping on top:

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 375° and you are ready to serve!