I’ve been pretty happy with protein smoothies in the morning lately. I currently use a vanilla whey powder that was recommended by our naturopath, and if I add some soaked oats and chia seeds to our raw milk, it makes a particularly quick, filling breakfast. But every so often, say when we are having a therapy-free morning with snow falling outside, a warm, leisurely breakfast sounds really good. Since seeing Leanne’s apple cobbler pancakes at Healthful Pursuit a few days ago, they have been at the top of my to-do list, but we didn’t have any apples, so in homage to the lazy day that inspired the original recipe, I just scrounged around in the refrigerator and came out with a half-eaten jar of home-canned applesauce and some strawberry jam.

I only had two ramekins and about half a cup of applesauce to work with, so I divided it up between them and stirred in cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger (the applesauce itself is unsweetened, but tinged a pretty pink color from the skins). I topped the applesauce with batter until the ramekins were about two-thirds full, and they went in the oven at 425F for 20 minutes, followed by about 5-10 more minutes at 375F. At that point, they appeared set and were starting to brown on top, so I pulled them to cool for a few minutes. These little cakes retain heat remarkably well! They were worth the wait, however, and my dad and I really enjoyed the combination of spicy applesauce and souffle-like cake.

The jammy version was baked in silicone muffin liners. A tablespoon of jam on the bottom, topped with about a quarter-cup of batter, made four little muffin-sized cakes that cooked in about 16 minutes at 425F. As you can see, some of the jam seems to have absorbed into the cakes, but my mom said they were delicious and Nolan scarfed his down as an after-preschool snack.

Blurry shot of a fox running through our backyard during today’s snowstorm

These were not only easy to make and clearly versatile, but also healthy—full of protein-rich coconut flour, pastured eggs and fruit, and sweetened only with a little stevia or honey. I’ve made coconut flour pancakes before but was underwhelmed with them, possibly because they look like ordinary pancakes but have their own texture. The nice thing about this recipe is that it has its own unique identity, and since we didn’t miss the grains or sugar, I envision these little pancake-cobbler-souffle-muffin-cakes will be going into the regular rotation. Maybe one day we will even get to try them with actual slices of fruit!