Well, I had some yellow cake mix in the cabinet, but I didn't want cake cookies. I know, for someone so desperate to be so picky...well...anyway. I got out my cake mix doctor cook book and started browsing. I thought the only thing I might have the "extra" ingredients for was a simple coffee cake. No such luck. It called for buttermilk and other random things like pudding mix. I got online, the only recipes still called for pudding mix. I finally found one that I had the ingredients for....but then I started making it and I was STILL missing one thing...I can't remember what it was.
SO, I just improvised and make something up, which I find now is a pretty common "recipe" for a coffee cake, but it really wasn't a coffee cake in my opinion. I just used one recipe of yellow cake mix, mixed up like the box said....then mixed up some chopped pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon. I layered these in the pan before I baked it. It smelled SO good while it was baking and tasted SO good! I considered making a glaze for it, but after eating a *couple* of pieces of it I decided it wasn't necessary (so you KNOW it had to be good!)
Here is a picture of the "not" a coffee cake. I didn't know it was going to be so good when it first came out and it basically just looks like a plain yellow cake, but believe me there is some YUMMY cinnamon sugar and pecans in that cake and it is DE-LI-CIOUS! (I didn't put any of the mixture on top because I was afraid it would burn before the cake was done)
So, unlike recipes where they "say" you should "have all these ingredients on hand" (who already has stuff like almond paste on hand? Sometimes I wonder which pantry they are talking about here, a regular one or a "chef's" pantry?!) I can GUARANTEE that as long as you have the cake mix, you WILL have all these ingredients on hand!!!!