Breakfast Cake + A Brooklyn Brunch

Next week I will be crossing the pond to be a part of the amazing Cherry Bombe jubilee, a celebration of women in food which includes so many of my favourites, with Nigella at the helm this year. Together with my friend Melissa Hemsley and Maxine from Polka Pants, I’ll be hosting a two course brunch in Brooklyn, with asparagus mimosas, courgette fritters and cauliflower aloo gobi. (Tickets here if you can come along.)

To celebrate, I thought I’d share one of my favourite morning recipes from my latest book – breakfast cake.

One day I thought if I could make a cake with all the things I usually eat for breakfast, then it would be completely legitimate to eat cake for breakfast on a regular basis.  The recipes mostly uses the same set of ingredients as you might use for a bowl of porridge.

Rice flour works well here in place of the wholemeal if you want to make it gluten free. Aquafaba (which, if you’ve not come across it, is the liquid from cooking chickpeas which miraculously whips up like egg whites) works in place of the eggs 
(I used 135ml of aquafaba) and coconut or oat yoghurt works well too for vegans.

SERVES 6

100g coconut oil or olive oil, plus extra for greasing
250g plain yoghurt, plus extra to serve
150ml runny honey or maple syrup
2 firm, crisp apples (I use Cox’s), roughly grated
the zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
3 organic eggs, separated
100g rolled oats
100g ground almonds
50g wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
200g frozen berries, plus extra to serve

Preheat your oven to 190oC/170oC fan/gas 5. If you are using coconut oil, gently melt it and allow it to cool. In a bowl, mix the yoghurt with the honey and add the apples and the lemon zest. Add the cooled coconut oil or olive oil. Add the egg yolks to the yoghurt mixture.

Put the oats into a food processor and blitz until you have a scruffy flour, then tip into a bowl and add the almonds, wholemeal flour and baking powder and whisk to get rid of any lumps of baking powder.

Add the dry ingredients to the yoghurt mixture and mix to combine everything. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form soft peaks, then gently fold them through the batter with a spatula or large spoon. You want to incorporate as much air as you can here to make the cake light and fluffy, so try not to mix more than you need to.

Rub a 23cm ovenproof frying pan with oil and warm it over a medium heat for a minute or two so the base of the cake crisps up nicely. Take it off the heat and pour the cake batter into the pan (I use an ovenproof frying pan here but you could use a similar-sized cake tin instead. If you’re using a cake tin, pour the batter in without heating it on the hob).

Scatter your frozen fruit over the top and put the pan into the hot oven for 45–50 minutes, until the cake is golden and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out almost clean. If you are using a cast-iron pan the cake will continue to cook as it sits, so you can afford a few minutes less.

Serve in the middle of the table, with more yoghurt and some more berries if you like.

IMAGE: Ana Cuba
RECIPE: from my book The Modern’s Cook’s Year