Strawberry cornflake cake is part of a complete breakfast

While there’s nothing morally wrong with eating cake for breakfast—I do it all the time—there’s always that little whisper in the back of my mind that tells me I’ll be hungry again in half an hour. While a cake arguably contains the building blocks of an acceptable breakfast — eggs, flour, and milk — wouldn’t I be better off with a savory omelet? Then I remember the cereal ads of my early 2000s childhood, where a bowl of milky cereal was advertised as “part of a full breakfast.” If a bowl of strawberries and a glass of orange juice could turn sugary granola into a wholesome meal, why couldn’t they do the same for cake?

Recently, while making a favorite strawberry shortcake recipe — a fluffy cornmeal cake punctuated by juicy fruit — I noticed a box of unopened cereal staring at me from the top of my fridge, and I suddenly felt the need to toss a handful on my cake. I dreamed up a nutty, salty-sweet cornflake topping with brown butter that’s the perfect contrast to the first berries of the season.

Adding granola to the cake is certainly not a new concept. A quick search of the internet reveals cakes made with every conceivable cereal, from froot loops to cap’n crunch. Cornflakes are my favorite cereal—boring, I know—but I’ve always loved their feathery crunch and mild corn flavor. First I wanted to get cornflakes In both on and off the cake, so I experimented with grinding the flakes into fine crumbs and adding them to the cake batter in varying amounts. But after many tries, I decided there was a reason I’d never seen cornflake crumbs in a cake batter’s ingredient list—they left an unpleasant, bitter aftertaste and created a slightly mushy texture. The cornflakes topping stood out much more against the background of a simpler cake, adding a moment of contrast with the fluffy crumb. Not to mention that grinding grain into a powder is an extra step that most people would probably prefer to skip.

Obviously it’s not just the granola that makes this cake a perfect breakfast contender. The light crumb, crunchy topping and juicy berries are reminiscent of any good coffee cake, which we all know can be enjoyed any time of the day. But whether it Part from a full breakfast or just breakfast in and of itself – I promise not to say.