Hot Brandied Fruit & Overnight Coffee Cake (Southern Living, 1980)

The beach!!!  What a wonderful fun-filled family vacation!  I think we were all slightly apprehensive about spending a week in one house with all 3 sisters, all 3 husbands, 6 grandkids and the grandparents - but I think we are all ready to go back.  

As Lin mentioned in her summary, we didn't do so hot on the blogging last week.  We did however keep the Sunday tradition that my sisters have continued of having breakfast for dinner - with an early Southern Living twist.  I had two dishes that I made for our feast at the beach - Hot Brandied Fruit (SL '80 page 48) and Overnight Coffee Cake (SL '80, page 52).

HOT BRANDY-LESS FRUIT

15 oz can apricot halves

29 oz can pear halves

29 oz can peach slices

20 oz can pineapple slices

10 oz jar maraschino cherries

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup applesauce

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp cinnamon

Drain fruit, combining juices; stir well.  Set aside 1 and a half cups of the combined juices.  Melt butter; add sugar, stir until smooth.  Add juices and spices to sugar mixture, combine well.  Mix fruit together in a 2 1/2 quart dish and pour sugar mixture on top.  Bake at 350 for 30 mintues.

Couple of notes... I did use all of the reduced sugar, no syrup cans of fruit I could find.  And being at the beach meant cooking dishes were a somewhat limited selection... and spices weren't all readily available.  

And before anyone says "why did you leave out the brandy?"... I know that alcohol cooks out; but cooking for my sisters kids, I didn't want to serve something with alcohol in the title.  It just felt wrong.  Oh, and I forgot to stop to buy brandy.  

I did have help from my niece, Little Miss... can you tell where my cookbook is still a little sticky from all of the fruit juices? Which I love - a cookbook should be used and well worn, in my humble opionion.  This one was alright.  I didn't have any, but I think we have better "hot fruit" recipes in the family than this one.  

SAME DAY COFFEE CAKE

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup applesauce

8 ozs sour cream

1 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cups Gluten Free Flour Baking blend

Cream butter, applesauce and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs and sour cream, mix well.  Add in flour, nutmeg and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Pour batter into 13x9 greased baking dish.  

Combine brownsugar and 1 tsp cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over batter.  Cover and chill.  Bake at 350 for 40 mintues.  

Honestly, I took the "overnight" to be optional.  I combined everything around mid-day and put it in the fridge and baked for dinner... but that was mainly to get it out of the way.  We did have 3 cooks in the kitchen making breakfast!  I thought anything I could do ahead of time, the better.  (I think it was a smart play on my part... just saying).  Even being gluten free, this one seemed to be a success.  We didn't have any left overs of this one.  It wasn't overly sweet, which was a good thing.

Until next time,

Chery