Cake for Breakfast!

So. Ok. Something about me. I’m a chocolate freak. I love chocolate. I would probably eat chocolate at every meal if it didn’t mean serious consequences. Recently, Eric and I were out with some friends and asked to see a dessert menu. There was nothing chocolate on it. The server asked, “So, what are we thinking for dessert?”

I answered, “I think we’re still mulling it over.”

He walked away and Eric turned to our friends and says, “That means there is nothing chocolate on the menu so she doesn’t want anything.”

He was absolutely right. It’s nice to have a husband who knows you that well. 🙂

Now, Eric on the other hand is a citrus and fruit freak. He loves fruity desserts, specifically anything lemon. We actually had a lemon wedding cake because he loves it so much. Don’t worry. The cake was so good, I didn’t care about not having chocolate.

I might have had chocolate anyway. Just not in our wedding cake. But the cake was still amazing!

Anyway, my youngest brother is getting married next week, so I’ve been reminiscing about our wedding and about our fantastic cake. I wanted to make something that Eric would totally love and that incorporated his favorite all time flavor.

Blueberry Coffee Cake with a Lemon Glaze! And yes. I have totally had this for breakfast.

What? It has blueberries. It’s totes healthy.

 

And it begins! Here we have the items you need for the actual cake: 2 cups unbleached flour- sifted, 1 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) of room temperature unsalted butter, 3 eggs, 1 small container of plain Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons vanilla and 2 cups of blueberries.

You also need the juice of two small lemons, or one large lemon, whatever your grocer has and 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.

I know. It’s a lot. But I promise you, it is so so worth it.

We start with the cake. We have an empty bowl. To said bowl, we add our butter and both our white and brown sugars because we are all for integration here at Blah Blah Baking. ALL SUGARS MATTER!!

 

Cream the sugars and the butters together until mixed but not smooth. Does this sound familiar? Anyone? Beuller?

Yes! This is how we start the cookies too! It all changes here soon, but I’m so proud of you for paying attention! In case you forgot, the butter/sugar mixture will look something like this:

Now, you add in all the other ingredients for the cake. In the interest of transparency, I whisked the baking soda, salt and cinnamon into the flour first. I set that aside for a minute.

Then, I turned Carmelita on a low setting and let her go while I added the rest of the ingredients in the following order

vanilla

Greek yogurt

eggs (1 at a time)

Then and only then, do you add the flour. Listen. This is going to sound crazy. I’m about to contradict my own self here. Add all the dry ingredients at once. With cookies, it dries everything out. With this cake, there is plenty of moisture to handle all the dry mix at once.

It goes from this

To this!

At some point in the process, you’ll have to kick the speed up on your mixer to handle all the goodness, but that’s ok. Also, notice the bits of butter that are still a little chunky? That’s all just sweet sweet flavor. Don’t stress about it. This is one of those batters that does not need to be completely smooth.

Now. It’s time for the star of this freakin’ show.

Blueberries!!!

Blueberries are an incredible food. They are full of antioxidants which can aid in the prevention of multiple diseases including cancer and dementia. The fiber in them helps to ward off heart disease. They are ripe with all kinds of vitamins and minerals that help your body do all the things it needs to do to keep you happy and AND they are delicious.

Is this cake magical? Maybe. Maybe not. BUT! It contains a magical food, so I’m pretty sure it is worth a shot.

Unless you are allergic to blueberries. In which case, yeah…you might want to skip this one.

Ok! Fold in the blueberries! Be careful! Try to keep as many blueberries in tact as possible. Some will break and that’s ok. But the more of them we keep whole, the better.

 

Once the blueberries are mixed in, we pour it into a prepared springform pan.  I was super skeptical of this bit. I thought to myself, self, I’m not making a cheesecake! For why do I need a springform pan!?

But seriously. It was worth it. You can get these in a few different sizes at lots of different stores, but I went with a standard 9 inch pan. I am pretty sure I got it for less than $15 at the grocery store. I coated it with some nonstick baking spray and poured the batter in!

If you don’t have springform pan, or you are against them because of whatever reason, (WHICH I TOTALLY RESPECT!) I’m sure you can bake this batter in a 9X13 baking dish. I honestly am not sure how that would affect baking time, so if you end up doing that and figure it out, please leave a comment and let me know how it went and what you did! I’d love to know 🙂

Now we bake at 350° for 40 minutes.

While we are baking, we make our lemon glaze! It’s the easiest part of this recipe.

Slice the lemons in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl with your powdered sugar. If you get a few seeds in there, just dig em on out. You really don’t want those on your coffee cake.

I used a regular old fork and stirred the sugar and lemon juice together until the mixture was smooth and shiny. Like doctored-for-a-commercial-Pantene-hair smooth and shiny.

Yay shiny hair!

Wait a minute, I mean yay lemon glaze!

Once the cake is done in the oven, remove it and place the springform pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then carefully remove the outer ring. You should have a beautifully golden brown round cake!

After the cake has cooled completely, drizzle the lemon glaze all over that bad boy. Or girl. I’m not about forcing gender rolls on cakes. They are free to be whatever they feel their own identity is.

Then you slice and eat! I will be completely honest. When you slice this, you may notice that the point of your piece is a bit messy. It is just because there is less surface area there to absorb the amazing blueberry juice and buttery goodness of this cake. It might seem at first like it is not actually baked through, but I promise it is. It’s just so. freaking. moist.

 

Bake it. Eat it. Love it. Nosh on friends!

 

Yield: 1 cake Prep: 15 minutes  Bake: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For the cake

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, sifted

1 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter (room temp)

3 eggs

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (about 1 single serving cup)

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cups blueberries

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla

For the glaze

2 small lemons

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

 

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Whisk together flour, baking soda salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars.
• Add vanilla, eggs and Greek yogurt.
• Add flour mixture and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.
• Fold in blueberries.
• Prepare glaze by mixing powdered sugar with juice from the lemons until smooth and shiny, then set aside.
• Pour cake batter into a lightly greased springform pan and bake for 40 minutes.
• Let cake cool for 1o minutes before removing springform pan.
• Let cake cool completely then drizzle glaze on top.