Maple Walnut Cake

The smell of maple just sings breakfast to me. Whether it be maple bacon, maple syrup on top of pancakes, or maple frosted donuts, maple means breakfast. When I saw this month's Bon Appetit and the Maple Walnut Cake, I just knew I had to make it. How better to make having cake for breakfast acceptable?!

When I read the recipe, I imagined and hoped that the cake would taste something like a pancake. I was not disappointed. The cake did indeed have this fantastic breakfasty flavor to it. Part of me of course rejoiced knowing that it made it more forgivable when I had a piece before noon. It's sort of like that Bill Cosby skit in which he feeds his kids chocolate cake as the perfect breakfast (arguing that the ingredients include milk, eggs, and wheat ~ viola breakfast!). I love all foods breakfast. Perhaps I love breakfast, because I'm such a morning person and no one else is up as early as I am. So, the only thing I have to do until everyone else finally decides to greet the day is eat!

The recipe is a little bit of a riff on a standard cake recipe. The big difference is that the sweetener for the cake is maple syrup and thus all liquid. I left the toasted walnuts for the cake batter in medium sized pieces (like the size of a chocolate chip), because I wanted a little crunch along with the walnut flavor. The frosting also has a good deal of maple syrup (don't even think about using anything but real maple syrup); and if you're looking for another reason it's okay for breakfast, it has a good amount of cream cheese too!

All in all, I liked that this cake is not your same old yellow, white or chocolate cake. It's a dense cake with a really tasty frosting. The texture was heavier then a pancake, but there was certainly something about the cake and its flavor that shouted "pancake" to me. It's certainly a cake I'd make again...even if I didn't need an excuse for cake at breakfast!

This cake is good any time of day...rise and shine and eat some cake,