Archive for the ‘Breakfasts’ Category
If you have a waffle iron, the odds are good that you don’t take it out and use it nearly often enough. For most people, waffle making is a weekend activity that involves making a mess and spending a lot of time in the kitchen. For some waffle recipes – especially yeast waffles – this is true, but waffle making doesn’t have to be difficult. A streamlined recipe like these Blender Waffles lets you make waffles in less then five minutes, which means that you can have them any time and get a lot more use out of that waffle iron.
The waffle batter is mixed up entirely in a blender. It’s a simple recipe make with flour, milk, butter and flavored with a hint of vanilla. The waffles are crisp and tender, and while you can taste a hint of vanilla, they’re plain enough that you can top them with syrup, fresh fruit, whipped cream or just about anything else you can think of. The batter makes excellent waffles in regular waffle irons and in Belgian-style waffle irons (which I used here), that make waffles with very deep, syrup-catching squares.
This waffle recipe also makes a good base for other flavors. Cinnamon, cloves and other spices can be added to give these waffles a warm and wintry flavor. Fresh lemon or orange zest can be added to give them a light flavor, perfect for a spring or summer brunch. The recipe makes 4 large waffles and can easily be doubled to serve a bigger crowd – although you might need to do two batches if you don’t have a large blender.
When making waffles, preheat your oven to about 200F and store the waffles in there as you’re cooking to keep them crispy until you’re ready to serve them. Leftovers freeze well and can be reheated in the toaster or in the oven.
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The difference between sticky buns and cinnamon buns is that sticky buns have a sticky caramel topping that is baked onto the buns and cinnamon buns don’t, and are typically finished off with a drizzle of icing. The caramel for sticky buns is made at the bottom of the baking pan with butter and sugar and the unbaked buns are placed on top of that layer. After baking, the buns are flipped upside down and you’re left with a gooey, sticky and completely irresistible breakfast favorite.
These Sticky Buns with Golden Raisins are the perfect dish to make for a weekend brunch. They are delicious and not as difficult to make as they might look. The base for these buns is a simple yeast dough that is very soft and lightly sweet. The dough is made and allowed to rise for about 90 minutes. Then, it is rolled into a big rectangle to be spread with butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and raisins before being rolled up into a tight spiral and cut into buns. You could actually place them on a baking sheet and turn them into cinnamon rolls with icing added after) at this point, but I put them into a baking dish I had prepped with butter and brown sugar to bake.
The finished buns are light and tender, with a very soft crumb and a lovely layer of caramel on top. The light, caramely sweetness of the golden raisins is a perfect contrast with the golden brown sugar used to make the caramel in these sticky buns. Regular raisins will still work perfectly well, and you can also switch up the type of brown sugar to use whatever kind you have on hand. You could also add a handful of chopped pecans into the baking dish with the caramel if you like your buns with a little bit of a crunch, too. However you put them together, these buns are at their best when they’re warm – so dig in when they’re fresh from the oven and don’t hesitate to look for an excuse to bake some soon.
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My Sugar Donut Muffins are always a favorite when I bake a batch. They’re tasty plain, but they’re also a good base for donut-like variations. For instance, you could fill them with preserves to make jelly donut muffins or with lemon curd to make these Mini Lemon Donut Muffins with Lemon Curd.
These mini muffins have a buttermilk and lemon cake base and are baked in mini muffin pans to produce bite-sized treats. The muffins are dipped in butter and rolled in sugar just after baking to give them a slightly crisp, sugary exterior that is reminiscent of the exterior of a deep fried donut. They’re fluffy and tender, and the cake itself is not too sweet, which means that their sugary exterior balances well with the cake. After baking, I piped a little bit of lemon curd into the center of the muffins for a spring twist.
I make my own lemon curd for the filling of these muffins, usually using a recipe for Lower Fat Lemon Curd to keep in the spirit of lightness with the baked donuts (and because it is delicious). Store bought lemon curd can be used if you don’t want to make your own. Similarly, I used fresh lemon zest in the muffin batter, but you could use lemon oil or lemon extract in place of the vanilla extract if you don’t have a lemon on hand to zest. Fresh zest and homemade curd are going to take your muffins over the top, but these are tasty, lemony treats no matter how you put them together.
This recipe could also be made into regular sized muffins for a larger treat. Follow the directions for the full sized Sugar Donut Muffins for baking times and fill them with lemon curd after baking.
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Easter is a holiday that I like to celebrate by having brunch with family and friends, but sometimes it’s nice to celebrate on a smaller scale. One way to do this is to whip up a batch of Easter Egg Pancakes, rather than big batches of baked goods meant to serve a crowd. These are your basic buttermilk pancakes that are dressed up for Easter with a little bit of food coloring intended to give them a “decorated Easter egg” look.
To make these, you simply add food coloring to a small amount of your standard pancake batter. The colored batter is piped onto the top of regular pancake batter after it is added to a hot griddle. By putting the colored batter into small ziploc bags with one of the corners cut off (or piping bags), you can get more detailed with your decorations and you have a little bit of time to work before the pancake batter sets. I kept my basic batter plain, so that the colors would stand out more, but you could even tint the basic batter for a brighter (and even more appealing to kids) look. Use leftover colored batter to pipe a few extra decorations – a strip of grass, small “eggs” or even little bunny shapes – and garnish the plate before serving.
If you cook your pancakes at a lower-than-normal temperature for a longer time, you can can cook them all the way through and preserve even more of the brightly colored batter. Personally, I still want my pancakes to be nicely browned and don’t mind sacrificing a bit of color in my finished product as a result. That said, be sure to make your colored batters nice and bright (gel food colors will give you a darker result) so that as much color as possible comes through. Even if your pancakes don’t look as good as your dyed Easter eggs, don’t worry because they will taste delicious and will still be festive no matter what!
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Fruit often winds up on top of a stack of pancakes, rather than inside the pancakes themselves, both in the form of whole pieces of fruit and incorporated into a syrup or topping. This is usually because classic buttermilk pancakes are pretty darn good on their own and it’s easy to simply make plain pancakes and put the fruit on top. This is a great option, of course, but it’s nice to mix things up by putting the fruit inside of your pancakes from time to time for a little more flavor. These Apple Cinnamon Buttermilk Pancakes are a great example because they have chunks of sauteed apple inside of every pancake, adding more flavor and texture to every bite of breakfast.
I start off this recipe by dicing up some apples and sauteeing them in a little bit of butter and sugar until they are tender. Just about any kind of apple will work, so use what you have on hand. The pancakes themselves are not sweet (except for the syrup!) so I would recommend sweeter apples as opposed to tart Granny Smith types. Next, a cinnamon and buttermilk pancake batter is prepared and dolloped onto a hot griddle. I add the apple pieces into each pancake as it’s cooking, placing the pieces on the top of each pancake before it has “set.” The apples stay in place when the pancakes are flipped and pick up a little extra caramelization from the hot pan.
The finished pancakes are fluffy and light, with a nice cinnamon flavor and plenty of pieces of apple. The apples are tender, but not mushy, so they add a little texture to the pancakes and while guaranteeing that your breakfast is going to have a good apple flavor. Maple syrup is a fantastic compliment to the apples and cinnamon in the pancakes, so definitely splurge on the real thing when serving these.
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