breakfast | Nourish Yourself

I seem to feel the need to bake on long weekends! Something about wanting to do a little something extra for my family to make breakfast more than just our normal routine. This weekend, I tried a new recipe for a lightened-up blueberry crumb cake and it did NOT disappoint! Blueberries are so perfectly in season right now and I was staring at the huge carton I couldn’t resist buying and then I found this recipe…

The test of a good crumb cake for me is threefold:

1- Is it moist?
2- Is the crumb topping crumbly (not soggy) and sweet (but not TOO sweet)?
3- Does it hold up for a few days so I don’t feel compelled to find people who can eat the whole thing in one day?

This one, I’m happy to report, passed the three part test with flying colors. Beyond that, it comes in at under 300 calories per serving so you can have your cake and eat it too (so to speak). Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend…and hopefully a piece of this cake as well!.

Blueberry Crumb Cake
From Perfect Light Desserts by Nick Malgieri & David Joachim

serves 12

Cake batter:
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
2 large eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. each baking soda and salt
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. low-fat buttermilk
3 c. blueberries, rinsed, drained, picked over

Topping:
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

1. Heat oven to 350. Coat a 9″ springform pan with baking spray.

2. CAKE: In large bowl, with electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until lightened, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla and zest, then eggs, 1 at a time, beating until smooth after each addition. On low speed, beat in baking powder, baking soda, and salt, then half the flour. Beat in buttermilk, scraping down sides of bowl, then remaining flour, until batter is smooth. Stir in 2 cups of the blueberries; scrape batter into prepared pan. Scatter remaining berries over top, lightly pressing them in.

3. TOPPING: Combine flour, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl; add butter and rub together with your fingers until mixture is evenly moistened and clumpy; evenly scatter crumbs over top of cake batter.

4. Bake 55-60 minutes or until a pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Remove sides of pan; cool cake completely on rack.

We woke up to snow last Monday and it was scheduled to fall all day! While I don’t always take the time to make steel cut oats for breakfast, it’s one of my winter favorites. I got up early and put a pot on the stove before everyone else woke up. I added a little vanilla and cinnamon to the oats as they cooked and I chopped up some roasted almonds and got out pumpkin seeds, raisins, dried cherries, fresh blueberries and fresh strawberries for toppings. In 25 minutes, we had a pot of winter warmth ready for us. This is every bit as easy to make as regular oatmeal…it just takes a little longer to cook.

What I should do more often is to make this the night before in our crockpot so it is ready for us in the morning! I found this recipe on recipezaar.

If you’ve never had steel cut oats, they are simply oats left pretty close to their natural form. The whole oat kernel is cut into two or three pieces using steel discs. They are a better source of fiber than rolled oats, but take longer to cook. They taste a little chewier and nuttier than rolled oats.

By contrast, rolled oats have the bran mostly removed and are rolled flat to make them easier to cook. With the bran removed, they have less fiber than steel-cut oats.

Quick-cooking and instant oats are rolled oats that have been cut into smaller pieces and rolled thinner to cook even more quickly. They are an easy source for preparing many oatmeal dishes. But the kind found in packets often has a lot of added sugar! I’d rather get my sugar from my dessert than my breakfast.

So…if you’re waking up to snow and cold today or have a little extra time one weekend, try steel cut oats for breakfast and let me know what you think!

Tag Archives: breakfast

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Steel Cut Oats on a Snowy Morning