Update: Next year’s MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) theme is “A Fierce Flourishing”. After two years of research and one graduate Positive Psychology class, I did a presentation back in March on “Thriving” and thought this would be the perfect time to post that in my blog. I have included the PowerPoint Presentation as well as my handout. I hope someone can find these items useful in teaching other women about thriving. As I state in the conclusion of the presentation: we work on our hobbies, we work on our house, we work for a living, how about we take an hour to work on one of our greatest sources of happiness: our family.
Thriving Powerpoint Presentation
Recipe:
Okay, I know this is NOT the recipe to follow up with my doing to the Total 10 diet. But, it was Mother’s Day! After 3 dishwasher loads, a trip to teaching at church and feeding 10 people I get to eat cake 🙂 So then, without further ado I have had to add this cake to my BEST EVER Top 5 cakes.
My other Favorites are:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Devil’s Food Cheesecake
Well. Now, I’m up to 6 cakes!
This cake is so good, we’ll have to make this an even number top cakes ever. It’s super delicious, super easy. I wish I could just make like hundreds of them and sell them at stores because it would make EVERYONE happy.
I thought this was a pretty original idea…. only come to find out of course that there are no original ideas in cooking and baking. Like…… ever. This recipe is also floating around as Honey Bun Cake. But since I was trying to make it look and taste like a cinnamon roll in cake form, I’m calling it Cinnamon Roll Cake. And yes, the lower calorie swaps WORK!! Usually they don’t in some cake mixes and applesauce goes terribly wrong. But this will go terribly right and you will thank me.
*Note: This recipe has been changed since perhaps some of the people have posted it on Food.com and Allrecipes.com. Why? Because those lovely cake mix makers decided to reduce their cake mix from 18 ounces to 16 ounces per box. What does this mean to you? Well, it means all those lovely old cake mix based recipes might not turn out the same. This recipe uses 2/3 cup of oil. Most recipes you find will use 3/4 and this is because of the reduction in dry mix.
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil or applesauce or mixture of both
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 Tb. milk
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees or 325 degrees for pyrex/glass, nonstick or dark pan. 325 degrees for the Cinnamon Roll pan I used.
- Grease and flour a 9x13" pan or 10 cup bundt pan or cinnamon roll cake pan.
- In a great big mixing bowl, mix the cake mix, oil or applesauce, eggs and sour cream (or yogurt) for 30 seconds on low. Mix for 2 minutes on medium high.
- Pour only HALF the batter into the pan.
- In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle all over the pan.
- Dollop the remaining cake batter onto the brown sugar. Spread and even out the batter to cover up the brown sugar mixture..
- Take a butter knife and make gently long strokes through the batter and swirl it in big swirls.
- Pop the cake into the oven for 44-48 minutes in a 9x13" pan. Check the bundt pan after 35 minutes. Check the cinnamon roll pan after 39 minutes.
- When removing from the oven, if using a shaped pan like the bundt or cinnamon roll, let the cake sit for 15 minutes to cool. Then, invert onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- While the cake bakes, mix the powdered sugar and vanilla in a small bowl. Add milk until the icing because the consistency you like.
- You can drizzle the icing on while the cake is warm, or wait for it to cool.
- Cool the cake about 1 hour before serving.
