Strawberry Banana Coffee Cake

I can’t seem to stop shoveling strawberries in my mouth.

Anyone else having this problem?

Okay. Good. Glad we are on the same page.

I love when you can tell the true changing of the seasons by how produce tastes. I took one bite of a particularly vibrantly colored, delicately sweet and meaty strawberry about a month ago and said, “You guys! It’s officially spring!” The Dude and Monkey looked up from their plates with little to no interest and continued on with their respective lunches.

Oh well. I’m not sure what kind of grand response I was expecting from my exclamation.

Okay that is a lie. I was actually hoping for a little mini fiesta break, like in that commercial for the taco shells.

The one where they are lamenting over the round taco shell and the little kid says in subtitles “why not make it flat on the bottom?” and then the commercial cuts to a little party where they fling him up in the air and throw confetti.

So yeah, that is what I was hoping for. A quick springtime party with confetti and a mariachi band.

Digress much?

So when I can hold on to a few strawberries without eating them, I actually really really love to bake with them. (Remember these little cookies?)

Here is my latest strawberry concoction. A lovely little coffee cake, if it pleases you.

Oh and yes you may notice that there does not appear to be a large amount of strawberries on this cake…well…I’ll be honest with you. I ate too many before I baked up this batch for the pictures. Woopsie. (P.S. It is also the reason that I have all of two pictures of the cake in this post. Hey. This is real life. And strawberries get eaten in real life.)

This cake is sweet and dense, offering a nice contrast to the crumbly struesel layer all over the top. And the nutmeg and cinnamon thing going through it all? Sign me up! I love the way that nutmeg tastes with strawberries. The spiciness stands up so well to the smooth sweetness of the fruit.

Love it!

Happy Spring, ya’ll!

Strawberry Banana Coffee Cake

1/2 cup (heaping) diced, fresh strawberries

1/2 tablespoon sugar

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup (about 1 medium) mashed black bananas

2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl combine strawberries and sugar. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, while mixing the other ingredients.

In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine bananas, eggs, honey, vanilla, butter, and milk.

Dump the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.

Pour batter into a well greased, 8×8 baking dish.

Drain strawberries and scatter them over the top of the cake batter. Gently press strawberries into the top of the cake with the back of a spoon.

Sprinkle struesel (recipe below) over the top of the cake. Note: I only used about 3/4 of the mixture to top the cake.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Streusel Topping

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes

In a small bowl stir together the cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and flour.

Then using your fingers or a fork, quickly work the butter into the flour and sugar until it becomes the consistency of cornmeal and only small pea-sized chunks of butter remain.

Cherry Almond Butter Breakfast Cake

My mom was always the coolest. Whenever we had some leftover, she let my sisters and I  have cake for breakfast.

I guess she figured that cake really wasn’t any worse for you than most sugary cereals out there. I actually agree with her on that one, yet I have never given The Dude cake for breakfast. Mainly because there is no amount of coffee in the world that could help me power through Sugar Dude first thing in the morning. Scary thought.

This weekend though, I decided I wanted to be cool like my mom. The Dude stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her sleepy eyes as I was feeding Monkey some breakfast. I gave her a big hug and asked her what she would like to eat, “Monkey is having cake. Would you like some too?”

“Waaaahht?! Cake for breakfast?!”

Needless to say, she was game; and I felt like the cool mom. Mission accomplished.

This here is a cake you don’t have to feel bad about feeding to the wee ones.

I am billing it as a breakfast cake because it runs circles around cereal (or leftover birthday cake, for that matter) in terms of nutrition. But really, it is great any time of day. It makes a nice mid day snack, or a grab and go lunch for anyone who has to chase around after kids who have boundless energy.

It is full of fruit, oats, whole wheat flour, Greek yogurt, flax seed, and as promised, the fabulous almond butter that we made over the weekend.

You will notice that for this recipe, I let my oats soak for a little while before I combined them into the batter. Basically I did this because The Dude has texture issues. Many times, if she sees oats peeking through baked goods, she picks them out and declares that “nuts are yucky.” I have never been able to convince her that the oats she sometimes finds are not in fact nuts. So a lot of times what I will do is soak them in milk for a bit before I bake with them. It helps the oats dissolve into the batter and adds a bit of softness to the whole wheat which can sometimes be a little grainy.

Here are my oats pre-soak.

And here they are after about 45 minutes.

And just a little heads up, this is not a very sweet cake so I made a little sweet drizzle to go over the top.

Come on now, even though it is healthy cake we have to have a little bit of fun. I mean…I am the cool mom after all…

Cherry Almond Butter Breakfast Cake

1 cup old fashioned oats

1/2 cup almond milk (regular dairy milk is fine too)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

4 tablespoons milled flax seed

3/4 cup almond butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup dried cherries

Stir together oats and almond milk in a small bowl and let sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and flax seed. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine almond butter and brown sugar.

Fold in Greek yogurt and vanilla.

Stir softened oats into the almond butter mixture.

Add the dry ingredients to wet.

Fold in the dried cherries.

Press batter into a greased 8×8 in pan (it tends to be pretty thick and sticky, so you may want to press it down with your hands) and bake for 30 minutes.

Let cool completely before drizzling with glaze (2 tablespoons powdered sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons almond milk) and cutting into squares.