Overnight breakfast squares Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

My daughter and I have been tirelessly looking for new breakfast foods since the price of eggs has skyrocketed. We call these new meals our “sad, sad, egg-free breakfasts.” But they’re not sad at all. And though this recipe is not technically egg-free, you can make it egg-free like I did. Right now, as a single mom, cooking with chicken eggs feels like cooking with caviar — unnecessarily expensive and fancy.

When I came across this overnight coffee cake, it caught my attention. I love to plan ahead, and this recipe makes enough for a whole week of breakfasts.

Cake, however, is a four-letter word in our house. Not a single big or little person in my family cares for cake. At birthday parties, we opt for cookies, ice cream, or pie. And though many swear by one cake recipe or another that is somehow “better” or “more moist” or that will “knock our socks off,” we haven’t found a single cake recipe that we all like. My daughter is especially fussy when it comes to cake; she abhors it.

But this recipe is far more breakfast than cake. The flavor is a mixture of warm spice and nuts, and it pairs beautifully with fruit and cream. To proactively diffuse any fuss from my kids, I’ve opted to rename these “breakfast squares.” After presenting them as such, they were promptly gobbled up.

The original recipe was penned by the lovely Catherine Vodrey (who I had the pleasure to meet online via The Wedding Cookie Table Community) and published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on Feb. 16, 1997.

This is one of those recipes that’s perfect for this chilly, gray, sleepy time of year — you can make it ahead and pop it in a hot oven for a nice warm breakfast in the morning.

Overnight breakfast squares – directions Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

The original recipe reads as follows:

2 cups (8 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
2 jumbo eggs
1 cup ricotta cheese

Topping:

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup chopped nuts
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Grease and lightly flour and 9 x 13” cake pan. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and ricotta. Then, beat in the flour mixture. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and beat again until smooth. The batter will be thick.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over cake. Refrigerate, uncovered, overnight.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake on upper middle rack for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before serving. Serves 6-8.

The finished cake, fresh from the oven, before cutting into squares Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

This recipe is lovely as-is, but I made some changes. Instead of ricotta cheese, I used high-protein plain Greek yogurt. In my defense, there is a note on the original recipe stating that sour cream or plain yogurt may be substituted. Also, I added 1 ½ tsp vanilla because I love the flavor.

As stated above I used chia eggs instead of jumbo eggs for this recipe. For each “egg,” I mixed together 1 tbsp ground chia seeds with 3 tbsp warm water. I let the mixture sit for ten minutes until it got nice and goopy before adding it to my cake batter. Chia seeds are easy to grind down in a coffee grinder if you have one. Otherwise, a mortar and pestle will do.

Now, it’s a square, not a “cake.” Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

I expect this cake may have risen more with regular eggs, but it was still light and fluffy and plenty moist.

As for the topping, I used a mixture of almonds and pistachios for my chopped nuts, omitted the wheat germ (since I couldn’t find any to save my life), and substituted some ground rolled oats.

Bananas and cream with a dusting of brown sugar Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

I decided to chop up some bananas and dust them with brown sugar and cream as a topping for this lovely little coffee cake, er, I mean, “breakfast squares.”

For those who are still using eggs in your cooking and baking, I mean absolutely no offense. I’m still happily buying eggs from a local farm, just less of them. Not everyone can go without, and I stand with you. They could be more expensive, all things considered, like they are in some other areas.

Here’s a printable copy of this lovely little breakfast cake that we’re not calling a cake: