Breads and Rolls – Apple Ring Coffee Cake

Stir Up Your Power, O Lord

In Advent the collects for the day are especially beautiful. You may remember I wrote about collects a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the collect for the first Sunday in Advent:

Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Each Advent collect begins with “stir up your power, O Lord, and come…,” and in Advent we wait. That’s why the altar is adorned in blue: blue is the color of expectation and hope.

Apple Ring Coffee Cake

Michelle W. made this great-looking apple coffee cake (p. ), submitted by Monique H. She said everyone in her family really enjoyed it! Thanks, Michelle, for baking, and to Monique for submitting.

Breads and Rolls – Blueberry Coffee Cake

Crossnore School

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in North Carolina on our church’s mission trip, I learned about Crossnore School, a fabulous Christian institution for abused, neglected, or abandoned children.

About 35 of the kids from Crossnore were our guests for VBS at the camp where we stayed. Our youth prepared crafts, music, games, and Bible study for the young people from the school.

On Thursday of the week, we had the opportunity to tour Crossnore. It’s a lovely campus, as you can see from these photos. It was a privilege to see the home where these kids can find refuge from difficult home situations, and it was our pleasure to be able to spend some time with the kids.

Blueberry Coffee Cake
So for someone trying to make a two-pound loss this week, baking a coffee cake is not exactly a good idea. Kelly, my blogging partner, told me that once she got sick after eating cookie dough. This is possibly the first and only time I’ve ever hoped to get sick by eating cookie dough or cake batter–but maybe that would cure me of my bad habit of sampling whatever I bake.

Anyhow, I’m down 17 pounds, and though I still have a way to go, I did feel pretty happy today to see run into my doctor at the library and for her to say I was looking good. That is the kind of affirmation we all need, isn’t it?

I also found a way to avoid shin splints! My friend Laura recommended I go to New Balance in Oak Brook to get some good tennis shoes. Since I got them, my shin splints are gone. So now–good or bad–I have no excuse not to run. I can run almost a full mile without any walking, and I’m pushing it now to two miles, walking and running. It’s good to find my inner athlete! So even in spite of blueberry coffee cakes tempting me, I am making progress.

Blueberry Coffee Cake
This is a very basic recipe (p. 67), flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, and blueberries, with a cinnamon crumb topping. Yum!

The reason why I chose this recipe was because our theme for last Wednesday’s cooking club at Elmhurst Public Library was BLUEBERRIES! We figured the berry is in season and fabulous at this time of year, so blueberries it was. I had the idea of making blueberry smoothies for the crew, but I would have had to take my blender. Since I rode my bike, I figured that would be a little difficult.

So here’s how the Blueberry Coffee Cake turned out, along with some of the other treats at cooking club. Yum!