Dear Director:

I need to bake a treat for my morning staff meeting. Any ideas?

--Hungry

Dear Hungry:

You might like my wife's coffeecake. It's a simple recipe she created, and my journalism students are huge fans. Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9x13 cakepan.

Make streusel mixture in a small mixing bowl (but something bigger than a soup bowl). Here are the ingredients:

• 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• ¼ cup (half a stick) margarine or butter, softened
• ½ cup flour
• 2 Tbsp. cinnamon

Now it's time to start the coffeecake. You'll need:

• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into another mixing bowl, and set aside

Here are the last of the ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup melted shortening
• 2 Tbsp. melted butter or margarine
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/3 cups milk

In a large mixing bowl, beat egg until frothy, beat in sugar, then beat in the melted butter and shortening until well combined. Then beat in the milk and vanilla. Its sloppy, at this point.

With a wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture you made earlier until well combined.

Now comes the fun part. Spread about 1/3 of the batter on the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle one-half of the streusel mixture evenly across the batter. Pour the rest of the batter over the streusel. Sprinkle the rest of the streusel over the top.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool slightly in pan, on a wire rack. Serve warm, if at all possible. And with coffee.

Enjoy!

--Former Director, Doug Trouten