Whole grain peanut butter cake topped with sour cherries

When I got home last night, I knew I had an easy task ahead: making a couple of tuna sandwiches for dinner. Not a big deal. Not only tuna salads are extremely easy to make, but the fact that I’ve made them hundreds of times gives me the confidence to say I could do one with my eyes closed. I had one little problem though: I was out of mayo. A normal person would’ve gone with one of the following options: buy mayonnaise, use a different condiment, or ditch the tuna altogether and make something else. But the key word in that sentence was NORMAL, which I’m not. Instead, I decided to make my own mayonnaise, even though I’ve never done so before.

Half an hour and a full sink later, I had a salty, broken mayonnaise. It was terrible. But I wasn’t too frustrated. I taught myself to cook; I’ve gone through worst disasters. I am resilient though; I try, I fail, I try again. It’s my proven formula. 

Many people are terrified of baking, but not me. After trying-failing-and tying again several times, I’ve gotten used to the ratios of ingredients, and the consistencies of batters. Once you let go of the fear of failing, you quickly realize how easy it is to follow a recipe, and to eventually come up with your own.

Today I’ll share this cake I made for breakfast. The cake itself was made from 100% whole wheat and peanut butter. It has a wonderful consistency and a luscious taste. To give it more of a peanut butter and jelly profile, I topped it with sour cherries. I know, sour cherry season is still far away, so I used sour cherries canned in water. I admit, they have a bit of a pale look. But I tossed them in sour cherry syrup, and topped them with powdered sugar, and they actually taste really nice. I poured the extra syrup over the cake to soak it. After resting overnight, the whole cake tasted like peanut butter and sour cherries, and the cake was moist and juicy. 

I know you heard the words peanut butter, sugar and syrup. Still, this cake it’s not a calorie bomb. Au contraire, this breakfast cake stands at a mere 189 calories per serving! Pair it with coffee, and it’s the perfect start to your day.

On the road shortcut

Nutrional info per serving (6 servings)

189 calories, 32 g carbs, 6 g fat, 6 g protein

Cake

1 jumbo egg

2 oz. (about ¼ cup) sugar

2 oz. (about 4 tablespoon) honey roasted peanut butter

½ teaspoon vanilla

Pinch salt

2 oz. (about 7 tablespoon) whole wheat flour

Topping

2 cups sour cherries packed in water, drained

1 tablespoon sour cherry syrup

2 tablespoon powdered sugar

Make the cake.

Preheat an oven to 350F. Grease a 5” iron skillet with butter.

Using a mixer, beat the egg and sugar together on medium-high speed until it fluffs and expand to 3 times its size (about 3 minutes). Add the vanilla and the peanut butter, and continue mixing until they are incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, incorporate the flour until mixed. Pour the batter in the iron skillet, and bake for 20 minutes (or when a toothpick comes out clean). Once baked, cool the cake for about 5 minutes before removing from the skillet to cool.

For the topping

Toss the sour cherries in the syrup. Top the cake with the cherries and the syrup. Top with 1 tablespoon of powder sugar. Leave the cake soaking overnight, and coat with the second tablespoon of powdered sugar just before serving.

(If you don’t want to soak the cake, top the cake with the sour cherries without transferring the syrup they were tossed in).

Honey-roasted peanut butter and banana crepe

For those people who doubt its existence, deny its presence, and mock those of us who believe in it, I have news that will shatter your world. Fun does exist in Cleveland; it’s real and I stand a witness. I even have photographic evidence that attest to it!

Last Friday I went to the inauguration of Cleveland’s newest piece of public art at the heart of the theater district. It’s a 20-foot high, 4,200 crystals chandelier, suspended from a 44-foot high steel structure. The piece is accompanied by a retro signs with the name of the district, Playhouse Square, and by several arches a la Disney, throughout the square. The ceremony was really crowded, attended by thousands of people who really were at their best behavior; I was really impressed. There were so many people, yet everyone was getting along, no one was cranky or nasty, and people actually organized, on their own, to alternate the going and going through the enormous mass of people. The crowd was even kind and mindful of seniors, people in wheelchairs, babies and strollers, and I’m not aware of a single incident. There was so much energy and the city felt so alive, that you could feed off it and go on it for days. 

Saturday was dedicated to work, but I managed to break free and went to Severance Hall to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform Mozart’s Requiem. That chorus really killed it, with what I considered their best choral work in the last 7 years that I’ve been attending their concerts. Their “world premiere” of a piccolo concerto, though left much to be desired. My particular desire was that the composer would have realized she was full of bull, and would have put the pen down and not put me through that, but that’s just me.  Of course, I don’t really have a musical bone in my body, and my singing probably resembles the sounds of a poor cow in labor with triplets, so take my music-reviewing with a grain of salt. After the concert I was joined by my favorite people for some pre-5 de mayo beer drinking at a really cool pub. ¡Viva la cerveza!

It was a really great weekend, but I was afraid that the contrast between the pleasurable weekend, and the Monday-morning reality would crash and make me miserable. So now every time I have a great weekend, I insist on making my Monday breakfast a bit extra-special to keep it rolling, and start my week on the right foot. I kept the momentum by making sweet crepes, filled with honey-roasted peanut butter and bananas. I went BANANAS on them. They were luscious, filled with all the nutrients I needed to jumpstart my Monday, and yet low on calories. Plus they were fast and easy to make, and kept the dishes and the mess to a minimum. Monday was not a drag!

On the road shortcut

Nutritional info per serving

(2 servings of 1 crepe):

397 calories, 44 g carbs, 19 g fat, 19 g protein

½ cup low-fat buttermilk

2 eggs (beaten)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

½ teaspoon sugar

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon powdered sugar

4 tablespoons honey-roasted peanut butter

1 banana (sliced)

Combine buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla extract and mix. Add the flour, sugar and salt, mixing until combined. 

Heat a pan on medium heat. Add cooking spray, and pour ½ the batter. Cook until the batter is cooked (3-4 minutes), without flipping. Remove from the pan, spray again, and pour the rest of the batter, cooking until the batter is cooked (3-4 minutes).

Split the peanut butter and bananas between the two crepes, saving some for decoration at the end. Spread throughout half of each crepe. Fold in half, and then in half again. Repeat the process with the second crepe. Using a sieve, coat the crepes with powdered sugar. Finally, top the crepes with the saved peanut butter and banana slices.