Sunday: Make-Ahead Eggs, Crispy Burger Bowls & a Build-Your-Own Birthday Cake Bar

Got up this morning and started with eggs for Chris.

I’ve talked about this before, but I like to prep his weekday breakfasts ahead of time, and my goal with the eggs is to barely cook them.

Today I prepped Monday and Tuesday, so I started with six eggs—three for each morning.

My Make-Ahead Eggs

I get a pan really hot, add a little butter and crack in three eggs at a time.

Then I leave them alone until they’re just cooked enough that I can flip them without completely destroying them.

Flip.

And almost immediately, take them out.

They should still be really runny because I don’t want fully cooked eggs going into the refrigerator and then getting completely overcooked when Chris reheats them.

I put each serving into a glass container and add some cooked pork sausage and a sliced almond-flour tortilla.

Tomorrow morning, he’ll microwave the whole thing for about 30 seconds, which finishes cooking the eggs while reheating everything else.

Breakfast is done for Monday and Tuesday.

The kids finished the bacon I had made earlier in the week and had some of the Costco bagels I keep sliced in the freezer.

Those Frozen Burgers Get Another Chance

For lunch, we still had hot dogs and burger patties from last night’s dinner.

The hot dogs were easy. Everyone was perfectly happy to eat those again.

The burgers required a little more thought.

These were those frozen Costco burger patties that I’ve had sitting in the freezer since summer. They’re fine, but they’re not something I’m particularly excited to eat.

However:

The freezer is a pause on food. It is not a place where food goes to die forever.

So yesterday I cooked all of them.

Today I decided to see if I could make the leftovers a little more exciting.

I sliced the cold burger patties and put them into a really hot pan with some butter, then let those cut edges get nice and crispy.

Suddenly they were almost giving me steak.

Almost.

But definitely much better.

Cobb-ish Burger Bowls

I turned the crispy burger pieces into salads for Chris and me.

I started with arugula and added vegetables, onion, Greek olives, hummus and a good homemade vinaigrette.

Then the hot, crispy burger pieces went over the top.

It was basically a Cava-ish burger bowl made from frozen hamburger patties that I wasn’t particularly impressed with in the first place.

And Chris said it was really good.

Remix successful.

The Birthday Cake Bar

Then this afternoon I started working on dessert because we were celebrating my sister-in-law’s birthday with family tonight.

I always like bringing some kind of birthday treat, but she couldn’t really commit to a particular cake.

And I thought:

Why make her choose?

Let’s make a cake bar.

I made our favorite gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free chocolate cake from Iowa Girl Eats. I can’t take any credit for the actual cake recipe, but our family has made it dozens and dozens of times—possibly approaching a hundred at this point.

It’s that good.

It’s my go-to chocolate cake because everyone in our family can eat it, but more importantly, it doesn’t taste like a cake that’s good considering it’s gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free.

It just tastes like really good chocolate cake.

I’ll link the original recipe here.

Half-Sheet-Pan Chocolate Cake

Instead of making the cake in its usual form, I spread the batter into a half-sheet pan because I wanted relatively thin pieces for the cake bar.

The recipe calls for chocolate chips, but because this was a birthday, I decided to make it a little more decadent.

I used the dark chocolate bars from Trader Joe’s and shaved the chocolate into the batter instead.

It took a solid 30–35 minutes for my half-sheet cake to bake through.

Chocolate cake can sometimes be tricky to judge visually because it’s so dark, so there are three things I look for:

The toothpick comes out clean.

The cake is noticeably pulling away from the edges of the pan.

And when you gently touch the top, it bounces back.

Then I let it cool completely before slicing it into pieces and arranging them on a pretty platter.

And instead of frosting the cake itself, I made two piping bags of frosting.

This is where the cake bar gets fun.

Dairy-Free Vanilla Buttercream

For the dairy-free version, I used:

• 1 stick Country Crock Plant Butter with Avocado Oil, softened
• 5 cups powdered sugar
• Splash of vanilla
• Coconut milk, added about 1 tablespoon at a time as needed

Start by beating the softened plant butter.

Gradually add the powdered sugar and vanilla, then begin adding the coconut milk about a tablespoon at a time until you get the consistency you want.

And then keep whipping it.

I let mine go for a solid five minutes because I wanted it really light, fluffy and airy.

Then I transferred it to a piping bag and labeled it DAIRY FREE.

Regular Vanilla Buttercream

For the regular buttercream:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 5 cups powdered sugar
• Splash of vanilla
• Heavy cream, added about 1 tablespoon at a time as needed

Same method.

Beat the softened butter, gradually add the powdered sugar and vanilla, and then add the heavy cream a little at a time until the frosting reaches the right consistency.

Then whip it for about five minutes until it’s really fluffy.

That went into a second piping bag.

Two frostings. Very clearly labeled. Everybody gets cake.

Then We Made the Toppings

I put my daughter in charge of finely chopping Oreos.

We also put sprinkles into another little container.

And at one point there had been talk of my sister-in-law wanting a Black Forest cake, so I bought some cherries in syrup and put those into another container too.

Then I packed the platter of chocolate cake pieces, both piping bags and all our little topping containers.

Choose Your Own Birthday Cake

At dinner, I basically did table service.

Everyone got a slice of chocolate cake, chose which frosting they wanted and then could add Oreos, sprinkles, cherries—or whatever combination sounded good.

It worked so well.

And I think this would be such a fun idea for a bigger family party because you could take it even further.

Do a chocolate sheet cake and a yellow sheet cake.

Vanilla buttercream.

Chocolate buttercream.

Maybe in the fall you do a spice cake with cream cheese frosting.

Put out a bunch of toppings.

Then instead of trying to choose one cake that everybody wants, everyone gets to build their own.

It’s basically an ice cream sundae bar…

but cake.

And I am absolutely doing this again.