Cooking for Powers: Breakfast Banana-Nut Brithday Surprise Cake

Whew, that is a long title! I just had so much I wanted to say to describe this treat, so that is what I came up with. :-) Today is my wonderfully fantastic husband's birthday! Unfortunately, due to my crazy workload at work I haven't made his actual birthday cake yet. He will be getting his favorite Italian Cream Cake on Saturday. This morning I got up early to make him this mini breakfast birthday cake, which is pretty much a large glorified muffin. The best part is that this is actually a rather healthy breakfast cake...see the included whole wheat flour and flax seed. :) The recipe is written to make two cakes but can be modified to make as many as you would like.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

3 Tbs sugar

2 Tbs flax seed

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 pinch cloves

1 banana (very ripe and mashed well)

2 Tbs butter, softened

1 egg

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1.5 Tbs greek yogurt

1 Tbs of your favorite jam

2 Tbs walnuts, chopped

Crumb Topping:

1 Tbs brown sugar

1/2 Tbs flour

1/2 Tbs butter (cut into small squares and very cold)

1/2 Tbs oatmeal

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 pinch salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350-degrees F. Grease 2, 7-8oz ramekins.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients excluding the sugar. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and mix until well combined. Add in bananas, yogurt, and vanilla and stir.

Gently fold the banana mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula (do not overmix). Add chopped walnuts. The batter will look thick and chunky.

For the crumb topping, combine all the ingredients except the butter. Cut the butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or a fork until mixture resembles coarse read crumbs.

Scrape the batter into the ramekins until halfway filled. Drop spoonfuls of jam onto the center of the ramekin, take a knife through the batter to swirl. Add a few berries, I used cherries, but I’d imagine blueberries would be great as well. Top the ramekin with the rest of the batter.

Add the crumb topping to the ramekins.

Place the ramekins onto a baking sheet.