A breakfast that is not dinner again: egg-free cake you can slice all week

One of the quiet hardships of AIP is breakfast. Eggs are out, most cereals and breads are out, and a lot of people end up eating last night's dinner at 7 a.m. for months. It works, and it also wears on you. This cake is a real breakfast you can bake once and slice from for days, which is exactly the kind of make-ahead anchor that gets people through the long middle of the elimination phase.

There is gentle medicine in it. It leans on pumpkin for vitamin A, which is involved in immune and mucosal health, and on apples and prunes for fiber that feeds a healthier gut community. The gelatin that holds it together, in place of eggs, is a source of the same glycine and collagen that support the gut lining. It is lightly sweetened and spiced with cinnamon and ginger, so it tastes like something you want, not something you are tolerating.

Use real apples and let yourself appreciate that this is fruit and root and not a packaged bar. Bake it, let it cool fully, and cut it into squares you can see and reach for. A slice on a plate with a cup of warm tea, eaten slowly before the day starts, is a small act of care that the work asks for.

Ingredients

• Coconut oil, for greasing the dish
• 1 cup coconut flour
• 1/3 cup arrowroot flour
• 1/2 teaspoon homemade AIP baking powder (see swap note)
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 red apples, peeled and diced
• 5 ounces pitted prunes, chopped (soak 1 to 2 hours if very dry)
• 1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 6 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons gelatin powder, dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water

Swap from the source: the original lists baking powder, and most commercial baking powders contain corn starch. Use homemade AIP baking powder instead, made from 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda. The gelatin stays as written; it is the egg replacer and an AIP Core gut-support ingredient.

Method

Heat the oven to 350 F and grease an 11x7-inch baking dish with coconut oil.

In a bowl, stir together the coconut flour, arrowroot flour, AIP baking powder, and sea salt.

In a larger bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, coconut milk, maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, diced apples, and chopped prunes.

Dissolve the gelatin in the 1/4 cup of warm water until smooth, then stir it quickly into the wet mixture. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined; the batter will be thick.

Spread it into the greased dish and bake about 35 minutes, until the edges brown and a toothpick near the center comes out dry.

Cool completely before slicing. The texture is meant to be dense and pudding-like, not a dry crumb, and full cooling is what makes it hold a clean slice. Store up to 5 days refrigerated or freeze for a few months.

A note on baking and appliances

This is an oven bake, and it stays in the oven; an air fryer and an Instant Pot do not suit a cake of this size and texture. If you want to reintroduce later, walnuts or pecans are a reintroduction-stage add-in, not an elimination-stage one.

*Adapted from asquirrelinthekitchen.com*

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*Provenance: method rebuilt in ARM's own words from the our-words-summary at /Users/Christopher/Documents/Claude/01-Projects/ARM/aip-source-archives/a-squirrel-in-the-kitchen/apple-plum-breakfast-cake-meal-prep.md. Ingredient list used as factual reference. Swap: commercial baking powder replaced with homemade AIP baking powder (2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda) to avoid corn starch. Gelatin retained as egg replacer. No invented quantities. No third-party text reproduced.*