Beyond cereal and diet coke

Saturday's breakfast treat



It's been awhile since A.C. and I have had a weekend without morning obligations so we decided to take full advantage of all this spare time. A typical morning for us involves a bowl of cereal with or without milk and a diet coke. Probably not the healthiest or tastiest breakfast but it meets our basic morning needs of food and caffeine. Having a weekend full of free time, I decided to make a more elaborate breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday. One tradition in our family is to make French toast on an occasional weekend. The French toast recipe my mom makes is so rich and filling that we always joke that we can't have any other plans that day because the French toast could potentially immobilize us...in a good way. Maybe you have to be in my family to find something like that humorous...

I did my own variation on mom's usual recipe:

4 pieces of whole wheat bread (or whatever bread you have on hand - even stale can work)
3 eggs
3 teaspoons of milk
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 cup of canola oil
1 cup of maple syrup

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together and put aside. In a dish, mix eggs, milk and almond extract and blend until uniform. Add half of the cinnamon and sugar mixture to the dish. Poke holes with a fork into the bread and then soak the bread in the egg/milk mixture in the dish. Warm a large skillet with the canola oil. Cook the soaked bread two at a time for a few minutes on both sides. Remove the bread from the skillet and place on a dish covered with a paper towel to help remove some of the grease (this makes it healthy! :)) Top with maple syrup to taste and the remaining cinnamon and sugar mixture.

I'm sure everyone has their own French toast recipe which probably resembles the one I discussed above. I'd suggest putting some excitement into your own recipe by adding vanilla extract or almond extract or substituting the sugar with brown sugar to create a caramelized crust. Even try a new type of yeasty bread like raisin or apple bread. Or just top the French toast with every sweet topping imaginable. I'm even tempted to add some spice like a habanero - maybe now I'm getting carried away. Anyone have any French toast recipe upgrades?


Sunday's blueberry coffee cake



When A.C. graciously went to the store last night to buy food for dinner, I asked him to pick up some fresh blueberries with the intention of making some muffins for breakfast for the following week. The cafe at work has these ginormous blueberry muffins with a crispy sweet topping that sadly is majorly undercooked when you get to the heart of the muffin. In fear of getting a version of food poisoning from undercooked muffins, I decided I better quit wasting my money on these muffins and try to make something on my own. After realizing that our muffin pans are not capable of making ginormous muffins, I went with a coffee cake instead.

Here's my recipe (loosely based on a recipe featured on Epicurious.com)

For cake:
1/4 cup canola oil
1 beaten egg (or 2 tablespoons cornstarch + 2 tablespoons water)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

For filling:
1/2 pint blueberries
2 ounces of cream cheese, whipped
1 teaspoon of brown sugar

For topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans (or substitute walnuts)
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Reserved 1/2 pint blueberries to add before topping


Combine canola oil, egg or egg substitute, and milk. Sift together dry ingredients and add them to the milk mixture. Mix well.

In another bowl, combine all ingredients for filling and in another bowl, combine all ingredients for topping.

Pour 1/2 cake batter into a greased 8-inch round pan. Spread cream cheese filling evenly over batter. Add remaining cake batter. Top with reserved blueberries. Top that with the cinnamon nut mixture. Bake in 375°F oven 25 to 30 minutes.


With lots of sugar and sweet berries disguised as breakfast, how can you go wrong? If you do decide to make this recipe, keep in mind that the batter will be very thick and sticky. I was tempted to add some water or oil to thin it out but in the end, I'm very glad I didn't. So just work through the thick and sticky batter, it's not a sign that something is wrong.

A.C. liked it so much that he ended up with some of it smeared on his forehead. Yeah, I have no idea how that happened. Maybe that was his weird way of avoiding eating the whole piece.

I hope I have more upcoming weekends like this :)