Cake Mix Sunrise Cinnamon Loaves

What do you and your friends do for fun on a Saturday afternoon?

Sit by the pool. Go shopping. Watch a movie.

Not my friends!

Recently, I got together with nine of my blogging buddies from The Real Farmwives of America and Friends and we did some Freezer Cooking!

What's freezer cooking? Good question. Cris over at Goodeness Gracious does a great job explaning the concept over on her blog here.

This is the second time I took part in this type of marathon cooking day and I have to admit it stresses me out just a bit! However, we had a great time and you can check out Instagram and Twitter to see some of our antics during the day.

Thanks to Gooseberry Patch we had a head start picking our recipes with their Freezer-Friendly Recipes cookbook. I chose the Sunrise Cinnamon Loaves as my recipe!

It's a really simple recipe and I decided to step up my game and mix up two batches at once since I had 12 batches to bake in about 5 hours (thankfully the kitchen had 2 ovens)!

As I said before, it was a bit stressful for me so I didn't get a lot of action shots as I was in the kitchen. Trust me, there are no difficult steps with this recipe so you'll be OK without step-by-step shots!

After it was all said and done, I had nine delicious smelling soups, side dishes and entrees in my car!

I have to admit I only kept one for myself. The rest are in my sister's freezer so she has meals ready to pop in the oven after her baby is born later this month.

Before I share the recipe, I do want to tell you that I did a couple of things that were not part of the recipe. 

First, I added chocolate chips to some of the loaves. Chocolate makes almost everything better!

Second, instead of making all large loaves, I made some mini loaves and muffins. Just because I could.

Third, I added some big decorating sugar crystals to the tops of the loaves. I thought it made them look prettier. I also didn't quite use all of the cinnamon sugar mixture that it called for. 

Sunrise Cinnamon Loaves

Yellow Cake Mix with Pudding* (the recipe calls from 18-1/2 oz. pkg. I used slightly smaller boxes)

4 eggs

3/4 c. oil

3/4 c. water

1 t. vanilla extract

1/2 c. sugar

3 T. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prep two 8x4 loaf pans (grease and flour).

Combine the first 5 ingredients in large mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on high speed for 3 minutes.

Pour a quarter of the batter into the bottom of each pan.

Combine cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl and sprinkle evenly over the batter in the pans. (Add nuts, chocolate chips or other goodies here, if you want to.)

Spread the remaining batter evenly into the loaf pans; sprinkle the top of the loaves with the remaining sugar mixture.

Use a knife to gently swirl sugar and cinnamon into batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (baking time varies if you do small loaf pans or muffins). Cool on wire racks.

Freeze and Serve Instructions: Place cooled loaves in freezer bags and place in freezer. To serve, thaw at room temperature or put a frozen slice into the toaster.

Rumor has it that many of the loaves I made didn't make it to the freezer...the one I took home may not have either!

*Look for cake mixes that say they have pudding added. Aldi's brand has pudding-in-the-mix, as does Betty Crocker and Pillsbury.

All opinions and photos in this post are mine for better or worse. There is an affiliate link and Gooseberry Patch provided me with the cookbook.