Quick Panko And Parmesan Broccoli

Panko and Parmesan Broccoli is an easy, cheesy broccoli side dish. Healthy, quick, and perfect for busy weeknights.

I have another quick and easy vegetable side dish for you today. Like I mentioned in my No-fail Butter and Garlic Green Beans post, I have some strict requirements when it comes to the veggie sides that I cook regularly. They have to be easy. They have to be quick. And they have to taste good while still being healthy.

Long, complicated, heavy sides are fine for the weekend, but on busy weeknights, I know myself well enough to know that I’ll just skip my veggies if it takes too much work to make them. And while mayonnaise-laden pasta salads and things like Loaded Baked Potato Salads are everything good and beautiful in this world, I shouldn’t be eating them every night of the week.

This broccoli fits all three of those bills. It’sSO easy–if you buy pre-cut broccoli florets, you don’t even have to cut anything. It’s fast, and it’s so, so yummy. I’m not kidding, if you are making this dish with other people in the kitchen, you have to watch closely to make sure they are not stealing bites of it!

There is no easier broccoli side dish than this quick and crunch Panko and Parmesan Broccoli! - 2

There is no easier broccoli side dish than this quick and crunch Panko and Parmesan Broccoli! - 3

The broccoli is tossed with a little olive oil then sprinkled with panko, Parmesan, Italian spices and garlic before going into the oven for 10 minutes. When it comes out, your broccoli is perfectly cooked and coated in a crunchy, cheesy coating that everyone will love.

Easy and cheesy, you willl love this Panko and Parmesan Broccoli. - 4

Easy and cheesy, you willl love this Panko and Parmesan Broccoli. - 5

And fun fact, do you know the correct way to pronounce panko? It’s pan-KOH. As a Japanese person who speaks just enough Japanese to know better, I had been pronouncing it PANG-ko for years! I feel that it’s now my duty try and correct the damage I have done. 😉

Pound Cake Cupcakes are a perfect excuse to eat cupcakes for breakfast. Light, buttery pound cake topped with the berries of your choice and smothered in a lot more than a dollop of homemade whipped cream.

There’s a great local brunch buffet place in my home town. A few years ago, they started serving cupcakes alongside their waffles and pancakes. Not pastries or glazed muffins, full on chocolate and vanilla buttercream cupcakes like you’d eat at a birthday party.

It offended me greatly at the time for reasons still I cannot name (though it doesn’t stop me from eating a bite of one every time), so it is hilarious (and the height of hypocrisy) that today, February 29, in the year of our Lord 2016, I’m posting a recipe called “Cupcakes for Breakfast.”

You have to try these Pound Cake Cupcakes! What could be better than cupcakes for breakfast? - 8

You have to try these Pound Cake Cupcakes! What could be better than cupcakes for breakfast? - 9

To be fair, I feel like fruit and whipped cream over pound cake cupcakes is a little more breakfast appropriate than chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles, but to each his own. And you don’t have to eat these for breakfast. They are delicious any time of day, but when I was thinking about situations in which I’d serve them, aside from sun-drenched afternoon tea parties, all roads kept leading back to brunch.

And what a brunch that would be. These cupcakes are a real treat. Soft, with a dense crumb on the inside and ever so slightly crisp on the outside. When you add the sweet tartness of the berries and the richness of the whipped cream, you’ll know you are starting your day off right.

I usually like to post sweet recipes on Fridays, but this recipe is being posted on a Monday because we are going to be using these pound cake cupcakes a couple times over the next few weeks as part of a four-recipe cupcake series that starts on Friday. Keep an eye open for that first post, I’m excited for you to see it! (Update: Those posts are now all live! Go check out my Tagalong Cupcakes and Samoa Cupcakes which both use these pound cake cupcakes as a base.)

These Pound Cake Cupcakes get layered with fruit and whipped cream for the perfect cupcake breakfast. - 10

These Pound Cake Cupcakes get layered with fruit and whipped cream for the perfect cupcake breakfast. - 11

More Sweet Breakfast Recipes

The Best Cinnamon Toast
Small-batch Cinnamon Rolls
Pancakes for One
White Chocolate Mocha

Ingredients

Pound Cake Cupcakes

▢ 1 cup ( 100 g) sifted cake flour
▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
▢ 1/3 cup unsalted butter room temperature
▢ 1 cup ( 200 g) superfine sugar*
▢ 2 large eggs at room temperature
▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢ 1/3 cup heavy cream

Whipped Cream

▢ 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
▢ 1 tablespoon 1 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla optional

Toppings

▢ 1 1/2 cups berries of your choice

Instructions

Pound Cake Cupcakes

Line your cupcake pan. Do not preheat your oven.
Using two large bowls, sift together salt and flour and then return flour mixture to sifter and sift once more.
In a stand mixer (or with a hand-held electric mixer), with the paddle attachment, on medium-high speed, beat softened butter and sugar until visibly lightened in color, about 3 minutes.
Scrape down the sides and bottom and add the eggs one at a time, beating after each. Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated.
Scrape sides and bottom and with the mixer on low, add half of the flour, mixing until combined.
Add all of the cream and then the rest of the flour. Mixing well after each.
Scrape sides and bottom and beat on medium-high speed for 4 minutes until batter is smooth.
Fill cupcake cups 2/3 of the way full and tap tray on the counter a couple of times to remove any air bubbles. This should make exactly 12 cupcakes.
Place into a cold oven and set to 350°F. Bake for 20-27 minutes (depending on how fast your oven heats up), until golden and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.

Whipped Cream

If making by hand, place your (preferably) metal bowl and whisk in the freezer for about 15 minutes until they are very cold. Once chilled, remove bowl and add cream, sugar, and vanilla. Go to town whisking until soft peaks form.
If making in a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla on medium-high speed until cream reaches desired consistency, about 3-5 minutes.

Assemble

Spoon a thin layer of whipped cream over the center of your cupcakes. Place berries over the top and then spread a generous spoonful of whipped cream over the berries.
Garnish with one more berry and serve.

Notes

Nutritional Information Poundcake Recipe Adapted From: Epicurious

Small-batch Instructions: To halve this recipe, just remember that 1/2 of 1/3 cup is equal to 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons. Freezer Instructions: Cupcakes can be individually wrapped in foil and frozen together in an air-tight container for up to 2 months, though tops may become slightly crumbly. To defrost, unwrap and allow to come to room temperature on a wire rack (so the bottom doesn’t become soggy) for about an hour. I don’t love to freeze whipped cream for use on baked goods, but if you have leftovers, you can freeze the excess in dollops to put in coffee and hot chocolate.

Tagalong Cupcakes are delicious pound cake covered in peanut butter buttercream and dipped in chocolate. A perfect cupcake version of the Girl Scouts’ best cookie.

Tagalong Cupcakes are pound cake covered in peanut butter buttercream and dipped in chocolate. A perfect cupcake version of the Girl Scouts' best cookie. From BakingMischief.com - 14

It’s Girl Scout Cookie season! Were you a Girl Scout? I was a Girl Scout. This time of year always brings back fond memories of that period of my life: riding a bike without training wheels for the first time during a meeting, making SWAPS, watching troop leaders chase a flaming paper towel across a campground during a multi-troop camping trip…

I loved being a Girl Scout as a girl, so I thought it would be fun to create a series of Girl Scout-inspired cupcakes as an adult.

I had SUCH a blast coming up with these. I thought long and hard about how to interpret each aspect of the cookies. Some of them were literal, chocolate coating for chocolate coating, but for some I had to really think about what the cupcake equivalent would be.

For example, two of the cookies have a shortbread-like base and one of them is literal shortbread, so I figured buttery classic pound cake would be the best sub in for buttery classic shortbread.

We are starting today with my favorite cookie, Tagalongs. Why these aren’t everyone’s favorite will forever elude me (see more of my complaining when we get to Samoas), but what evs. More Tagalongs for me!

Tagalongs are a cookie base covered in sweet peanut butter and dipped in chocolate. So my Tagalong Cupcakes are the aforementioned pound cake base, with a layer of sweet peanut butter buttercream, and then dipped in chocolate.

And surprise, Tagalong Cupcakes are amazing. They actually taste quite a bit like Tagalongs, but fluffy and soft rather than crunchy. The peanut butter pairs shockingly well with the pound cake and obviously, peanut butter and chocolate is a no-fail combo.

Stay tuned for the next three Fridays as we make our way through the other three most popular Girl Scout Cookies, in order from least to most popular, ending with the cookie that accounts for the largest percentage of total Girl Scout cookie sales (you can probably guess which one that is).

And if all this talk of cookies has given you a hankering for some, you can use the cookie locator to find your nearest troop selling them! Support some young ladies so they can grow up and run a food blog that… makes cupcakes based off of Girl Scout Cookies.

Time is a flat circle.

Do-si-do Cupcakes

Thin Mint Cupcakes

Samoa Cupcakes