Breakfast Cake

It's not a cake, and this isn't a recipe

If you are anything like me, you wind up with random bits and bobs hanging around in your pantry. I’m always looking for ways to use those up. I get rather excited when I use up a container and can toss it, or wash it to be used for the next extraneous ingredient I won’t waste. I was in the mood to bake, so I pulled a bunch of things out of my baking cupboard, looked at them, and determined how to use up most of the little bits, and make inroads on other things I’m aware have been lurking far too long.

So this isn’t a recipe. This is more like a guideline, for making up something like this to use up things like these.

You can play fairly fast and loose with it, honestly. This kind of quickbread is more forgiving than some baked goods.

The core:

• 1 2/3 c all purpose flour¹

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 4 tbsp lard (cut into the dry ingredients very well)²

• 2 eggs

• 1 c milk³

Preheat the oven to 350F

Grease or line a pan. You could do a 9x13 pan for squares to serve alongside a meal or as coffee cake, or you could do a 9” round springform, with either you want to grease or line with parchment paper (or a combination of both).

Now, from here you can decide if you’re doing a sweet, or a savory, or something in-between, and also, what do you have that needs to be used up?

I had a hankering for sweet, and frozen struesel⁴ to use up, so I went in that direction. To the dry ingredients, I added about a heaping tablespoonful of brown sugar⁵. I had roughly 3 tablespoonfuls of almond flour in a little container, so that went in. I put in about 1 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice, and it could have used even more to make it really kick.⁶ I had a small container of sunflower seeds, about a half cupful, so that went in, along with roughly the same quantity of chopped pecans. I have a big bag of currants⁷ so I threw in about a half a cup of those to work on using them up. I also added a teasponful each of dried chopped lemon and orange peel.

If you wanted to take a turn to the savory, you could add bacon bits, those same seeds and nuts⁸, a handful of chopped or grated cheese⁹, maybe some parmesan cheese, some chopped chives or other herbs - rosemary or basil would be lovely - dried onion, a teaspoonful of parprika, or two. Same of granulated garlic. You could add finely chopped up veggies like a pretty pepper or onion, but no more than about a cupful, as this can throw off your liquid balance. Some or all of that!

Stir together your dry ingredients, then add in the eggs, about a half cup of milk, and stir. Slowly add more milk until you have formed a thick batter.¹⁰ Pour into the prepared baking pan, and put into the oven for 55-60 minutes, until a cake tester comes clean from the center. If you are using the 9x13” baking dish, it will take less time, start checking on it about 25-30 minutes in to the bake time.

This bread/cake/whatever-you-call-it will be a little too crumbly for sandwich bread, but it works as a side for a meal, a coffee cake for breakfast, a high-protein snacking muchable, toasted with butter (and jelly if you like, my sweet is not very sweet at all) the next morning.

I never make this the same way twice. I might grate an apple into it, a carrot, or a zucchini. Or mash a super ripe banana in there. Heck, avocado that needs used up works nicely.

My point is, finding ways to use up the things that might otherwise go to waste is a good thing, and learning to compose with flavors on the fly is really fun. Baking shouldn’t be intimidating! Play with your food!¹¹

1. Whole wheat would work, but the result would be denser.

2. Butter works too, or bacon grease if you’re doing a savory version.

3. Add milk slowly, at the end, as you may need more or less depending on what you added to the core recipe. Also, you could use water here. Or juice. Or coconut milk. Whatever liquid you have on hand to use.

4. I make streusel several cups-ful at a time in my food processor, and put it in a big bag in the freezer, then use a handful or a cupful at a time for coffee cakes, pie toppings (Pennsylvania Dutch version of the top crust, a family tradition) or what-have-you.

5. if you want this to be actually sweet, up this to a cupful, and you’ll have something like cake.

6. I’d double that, if I could go back to that moment as I added it.

7. Baking currants are tiny raisins, not actual dried currants, to my deep disappointment. I love currants.

8. Or any variation on seeds and nuts, really.

9. Swap out some of your liquid for plain yogurt works, too. For either version.

10. Looser than biscuit dough, no thinner than cake batter. You have some leeway here.

11. I may have gotten carried away in the footnotes, sorry!