Brighten the morning for family and friends by adding a homemade coffeecake to the breakfast menu. Although many people can enjoy a slice of coffeecake with their cup of coffee and call that "breakfast," I consider it breakfast dessert (after the homemade biscuits, ham-bacon-or-sausage and eggs). Either way, it gets our day off to a good start.

Recently, when I was going through some old recipes for new ideas, I found one for a coffeecake that uses vanilla cream-filled sandwich cookies. Of course, I made a few changes. I decided that chocolate cream-filled sandwich cookies would taste great and would give the coffeecake more "eye appeal." I also opted to drizzle a glaze on top.

This easy coffeecake is made using boxed biscuit mix, which gives it a light texture, almost like cake. The cookies are used to make a streusel mixture that goes in the middle and on top of the batter. This is one of those versatile recipes that can be adapted to whatever ingredients you might find in your kitchen pantry. Don't have any walnuts? Just substitute any nuts that you might have. Cashews, almonds or pecans would be good.

If you have the vanilla cream-filled cookies, you might want to make a chocolate batter by adding about 1/4 cup of cocoa. Of course, with the addition of cocoa, you will need to increase the sugar from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup (or more, if desired). Substituting chocolate milk for the regular milk in the batter would certainly enhance the chocolate flavor. Look at the cream-filled cookies in your supermarket and you might come up with an entirely different version. How about using peanut butter filled cookies in the chocolate batter version?

The possibilities are many for this delicious coffeecake, so just be creative.

COOKIE STREUSEL COFFEECAKE

1 cup chocolate cream-filled cookie crumbs (usually takes about 9 cookies)
2/3 cup sugar, divided
5 tablespoons butter, divided (softened at room temperature)
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
2 cups biscuit mix
2 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 11x7x1 1/2-inch baking dish (or dish of approx. size). Process the cookies in the food processor to very fine crumbs. Add 1/3 cup sugar and 3 tablespoons butter. Pulse until mixture is well mixed. Stir in walnuts. Set aside while preparing the batter.

In large mixing bowl, combine the biscuit mix, the remaining 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Mix on low until dry ingredients are moistened, then beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour about half of the batter into the prepared dish. Sprinkle half of the cookie mixture over the top. Spoon remaining batter over cookies and carefully spread to cover. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into coffeecake. Cool and then add confectioners' sugar glaze.

Confectioners' sugar glaze

1/2 to 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon milk or water

Combine ingredients and whisk until smooth. If glaze is too thick, simply add a little more liquid. If too thin, add more confectioners' sugar. You want the glaze to be thin enough to drizzle from a spoon, but thick enough to form an attractive topping for the coffeecake.