Breakfast comes in all shapes and sizes: liquid (smoothie), solid (pancakes), leftovers (yesterday’s pizza), and now I am proposing a new category––dessert. When I wake up, I crave sugar rather than caffeine, and I will not hesitate to grab whatever sweet item is within reach once I finally make it to the fridge. Sometimes that’s something “sensible” like fruit salad or blueberry yogurt. But other times it’s cake. And I say I can have it for my breakfast, and eat it, too. If you feel the same, here is my official list of acceptable dessert-as-breakfast items:
Cake
There are only two degrees of separation between cake and an already well accepted breakfast food: muffins. Downgrade your cake slice to a single cupcake, remove the frosting, and you, my friend, have a muffin. Are we truly about to say that frosting alone blocks this dessert’s entry into the breakfast club? Cold, refrigerated cake has such a pleasant mouth feel and sometimes even comes with pleasant memories: a wedding, a birthday, a treat yo’self moment. Who doesn’t want to start their day thinking about a great party? And cake has never done the roof of my mouth as dirty as a single bowl of Cap’n Crunch. The cuts, the scrapes, the fear of drinking anything acidic for the next half of the day…cake would never.
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Ice Cream
I think it’s time to admit that more of us are eating ice cream for breakfast than we admit in public. Frozen, sweet milk? I’m lactose intolerant and even I’m ready to risk it all for some cookies n’ cream first thing in the morning. And it’s not out of the question, if you really think about it. Cereal is a completely acceptable ice cream topping. And if you wait long enough, you’ll end up with a bowl of cereal. Plus, cereal’s not the only breakfast item you can pair with ice cream. It’s often seen with french toast or waffles! Take away the bready component and do you not still have breakfast? We need to start giving ice cream its hard earned seat at the breakfast table.
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Lemon Bars
Lemon bars are slices of pastry heaven. They’re essentially lemon curd doused in powdered sugar slathered onto a perfectly dense shortbread crust, all cut into beautiful squares. It’s practically toast. And I simply cannot accept that anyone would object to such beauty and grace in the early hours of the morning. This is one dessert item that is certainly invited to my breakfast table.
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Cookies
If Cookie Crisp exists, so too should my right to eat full-sized cookies for breakfast. Milk, in this scenario, seems to be the necessary addition that gets cookies into the breakfast party. So, I’ll just have milk on the side—for dunking. Cookies and milk came to the party together, they just arrived in separate vehicles. One cookie that would likely make it in of its own accord would be the oatmeal cookie given that oatmeal is already a breakfast staple. I am aware that, more often than not, oatmeal cookies contain raisins. And that just makes the cookies all the more breakfast-appropriate. Just look at Raisin Bran for a glowing reference.
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Straight Up Chocolate
Sometimes I like to pregame a more traditional breakfast with a piece of chocolate. Sometimes that means sampling a few chocolate chips while cooking up a batch of chocolate chip pancakes. Sometimes that means scarfing down a whole Kit Kat. Other times that means snacking on a spoonful of Nutella. I love chocolate, and the sooner I can eat it after waking up, the better. Fun fact about me: I get nightmares if I eat chocolate before bed. So, kids, only eat your chocolate in the morning.
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This is the kind of support I’m looking for! Dessert can and should be breakfast, I stand by it.