Breakfast: The Most Important Meal of the Day

I love breakfast. I have a mild obsession with cereal in general, so I guess it's natural that I would look forward to this meal. Even at this moment, I probably have about ten boxes in my cabinet right now, four of which are open and I eat on a fairly regular basis. I know some people wouldn't understand my obsession with cereal, but I think it's a marvelous food invention that you can eat anytime and pretty much anywhere as long as you're not committed to eating it with milk, which I am not. Not to mention you can coat chicken with it, make snack mixes with it, or top a cheesy potato casserole with it (as I did for Thanksgiving dinner!). In addition, the whole concept of breakfast usually involves some type pastry. Muffins, pancakes, waffles, scones, breads, bagels, English muffins, even cake. Coffee cake that is! And who doesn't want to eat cake for breakfast! In my family, it's a tradition to have coffee cake for breakfast on the major holidays (i.e. Thanksgiving and Christmas), so on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I busted out my baking supplies and tried a new coffee cake recipe.

This fruit-filled coffee cake did not go quite as stated in the recipe. First of all, the fruit pie filling was supposed to sink to the bottom of the cake. Yeah... As you can obviously see, it did not. This caused a couple problems. All that filling sitting on top of my cake severely altered the baking time because the cake underneath could not rise properly. The recipe originally stated to bake the cake for 35 minutes. When I checked it at 35 minutes, I had cake soup. Not exactly what I wanted to eat the next morning, so I kept adding more and more minutes to the baking time until finally (about an hour or so into baking), I declared it done. Actually, I probably hadn't even declared it done at this point, I was more praying it was done! The edges had gotten a little more brown then I would have liked, but I tried to cover them with foil during the second half of the baking time to keep them from burning while I was trying (praying) to bake the middle of my cake.

After the cake had completely cooled, I added the powdered sugar glaze, which as you can see turned out beautifully! For about five hours. When I woke up the next morning and went to slice up my cake, all the glaze had dissolved and I had puddles of pie filling moisture in all the wells in my cake. So I did what any baker would do, I tried to salvage it. I soaked up the extra liquid with paper towels, sliced it up, and hoped it was still edible, and surprisingly, it was! My husband and I had tried a piece the night before to make sure it was baked and it tasted good, but honestly, letting it sit overnight really let the pie filling flavors take over, it tasted so much more delectable the next morning!

Needless to say, this recipe was more stressful than it should have been and while this cake has a happy ending, I probably won't be making this recipe twice!

The Best Scotcheroo Recipe... Ever

When I was student worker in college, my boss and I were (and still are) very close. She became like my second Mom and during the time I had that job, I actually looked forward to going to work every day just so we could catch up, talk, and sometimes sneak out for breakfast or a quick coffee. She also would routinely spoil me with these absolutely scrumptious desserts ranging from caramel brownie bars, pumpkin bread, and my all time favorite, her scotcheroos. It was always a surprise when I came to work to see these goodies sitting on my desk! Even now when we get together for brunch or for the holidays, she will make a batch of her famous scotcheroos just to give me some because she knows how much I absolutely love them!

I have tried many scotcheroo recipes before and her recipe tops them all by leaps and bounds. Of course, the deliciousness would not stop there. She actually has two versions of her scotcheroos as well (what a great idea!). There's a gooey version and a crumbly version. The gooey version most closely resembles a typical "scotcheroo" bar that you might think of and the crumbly ones remind me of what is sometimes called a "Special K" or "Cornflake" bar. I thoroughly enjoy both and am not picky when it comes to eating either of them. In some of the scotcheroo recipes I have tried in the past, some have had an almost disgusting corn syrup-y flavor. Now her recipe, does not even remotely have that problem and I believe the secret to avoiding that feeling is to bring the sugar and corn syrup mixture to a boil. Don't just heat it up until it's combined like some recipes advise, actually bring it to a boil and then immediately remove it from the heat so it doesn't burn. This step is very crucial because it seems to be the key to making the whole dessert more cohesive. In addition, the ratio of chocolate topping to actual bar is also divine. It's about a 2:1 ratio; 2 parts chocolate to 1 part bar (sometimes more!). She totally believes in the saying that you can never have too much chocolate and with that type of mantra, she can make me desserts whenever she wants! So that's why I consider this scotcheroo recipe the best one I've ever had and I'm sure part of why they taste so absolutely delicious is that she's the one that's making them for me! :-)

The Infamous Bundt Cake

This bundt cake haunted me for years. Whenever my mom and I would bake together, cook, or even just talk about recipes, she would bring up this spectacular chocolate chip bundt cake that was absolutely excellent. It was torture to hear about this cake that I had never tasted before since the last time she had made it was before I was born. She had talked it up so much and so frequently, that I wrote down the recipe years ago to have on hand, just in case. This recipe was always hanging over my head. Would it be as spectacular as my mom described? What would it taste like? Would it become one of my favorite cake recipes too? Then, one day, it dawned on me. Make the cake yourself.

I had always (for some reason) been waiting for my mom to make this cake for me since it seemed to be one of her treasured desserts and she was also the only one who had ever actually made the cake before. But I was through waiting. I had a couple of days off of work and decided, this is it. I'm making the chocolate chip bundt cake. It's time. Today I find out what this cake tastes like.

So I made it. I buttered and floured my bundt pan, mixed all the ingredients into an unbelievably thick batter, baked it, and drizzled the chocolate frosting. After dinner, the time came and I cut myself a generous slice and topped it off with a dollop of whipped cream (I've noticed I've been adding additional whipped cream and other various toppings to my desserts lately...not sure why...). The cream cheese mixed into the batter keeps the cake incredibly moist and the extra little chocolate drizzle is a great finishing touch. Since the batter is so thick too, you don't have to worry about coating your chocolate chips in flour or anything like to keep them from sinking. The batter is like cement and those chocolate chips aren't going anywhere.

Overall, my first experience with the infamous chocolate chip bundt cake was a successful and delicious one. I'm not sure it's my favorite cake recipe of all time though. Don't tell my mom that.