The Breakfast Pastries Topic

[TurtleMeng]

In the Baking Illustrated they had the variation recipe with added egg also, which they state makes the scones more "cakey" (I guess compared to "biscuity"). So it should work well either way.

[Wendy DeBord]

I don't eat sweets in the morning (I know that might seem shocking, but......). I eat/ taste sweets all day long and when it comes to eating something by choice verses convenience, I crave savory. I often steal a couple strips of bacon from the warmer at work..........or I go with-out and have an omelet for earily lunch.

If I had them around I too would go for a piece of cold pizza or a bagel with nova. My diet revolves too much around whats convenient.

But if you want to talk about making breakfast pasties.........I LOVE making them and I think I've gotten fairly decent at making danish and such. My co-workers steal my danish off of the serving trays and my cart. That's the one item they all go bonkers over.

[kitwilliams]

The thing about scones is that there is the traditional British scone, served at tea with clotted cream and jam, and there is what I call the breakfast scone which, I believe, came into being here in the US. They don't much resemble one another and British scones would not usually be eaten without adornment whereas breakfast scones are sweeter, bigger, and come an infinite variety of additions in order to not require the addition of jam/cream/butter. As some of you have mentioned, many breakfast scones could be used as doorstops. But they can be delicious as well and they don't have to be heavy. Some are rolled out, some are drop. Cream and buttermilk tend to be the liquids utilized. Some have no fruit or simply the traditional currant. But cranberries, dried cherries, ginger, nuts, chocolate -- all have made their way into scones. If you're in a reputable establishment, give them a try...you might be pleasantly surprised!

If you're anywhere near La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, Nancy Silverton's Ginger Scones are awesome.

[CompassRose]

I would like to thank this thread for the fact that I had to make myself Vanilla Crumb Cakes this morning. I thank you. My a$$ thanks you. My recently-hired trainer who will now have to remove said crumb cakes from said a$$ thanks you -- probably more fervently, since this kind of thing doubtless keeps him in a job...

[cakewalk]

I would like to thank this thread  for the fact that I had to make myself Vanilla Crumb Cakes this morning. I thank you. My a$$ thanks you. My recently-hired trainer who will now have to remove said crumb cakes from said a$$ thanks you -- probably more fervently, since this kind of thing doubtless keeps him in a job...

←

I'm with you on that one. I just started working with a trainer again, who says, "how's the eating going?" and I look the other way, like maybe she's really talking to someone else.

Turtle Meng: can buttermilk be used instead of heavy cream in your scones recipe? I am going to try them this weekend (with buttermilk, I apologize profusely, but, you know), and was just wondering if you can clue me in on the differences I should watch out for. Maybe I should make once recipe of each? Hmmm. (Do they freeze well?)

Many thanks.

[katbert]

I used to live across the street from this restaurant school and the pastry shop would open at 7am with fresh baked practice goodies coming out of the ovens over the next hour or so. I would drop by for still-warm-from-the-oven super buttery pain au chocolat, fabulous for freshness and $1.25. mmm. Sometimes they would do weird combos in the muffins (cheese+bacon) but I always went for chocolate. There was also improvement over the semester (pastries would start out shaped weird at the start of the semester and then become more uniform towards the end).

[Tess]

I like muffins if they are not huge fat and sugar bombs-- which unfortunately most of them seem to be. If I'm going to eat that much fat and sugar, I'll have chocolate cake, please.

The only pastries I really like for breakfast are pastry twists you can buy in packages in supermarkets that come in all different flavors. I forget the brand name. They are heralded as being low-cholesterol but I don't think they are low fat. But they are just the right size and perfect if you want a little carbohydrate jump start for your system.

[Ling]

If you're anywhere near La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, Nancy Silverton's Ginger Scones are awesome.

←

I don't live near L.A., but here is Nancy Silverton's recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/104666

I've made these and they are delicious.

[M. Lucia]

I love breakfast treats. In my family, Sunday has always been the day for something special (the rest of the time it's oatmeal, yogurt, toast, grits, etc).

I love a good croissant or pain au chocolat, also a brioche. The bakery near me makes the most sinful maple pecan sticky buns. Also coffee cakes and quick breads (pumpkin is a favorite).

I used to love muffins (preferably bran), but you have to know where to get a good one. When I moved back to New York I remember the joy I felt when I was offered a low fat vegan muffin.

As for scones, I find them dry and boring, but they are quite popular at my local coffee shop.

At Cafe Sabarsky, in New York, they make the most wonderful Austrian breakfast pastries, including a sweet buttery bread that kind of looks like monkey bread but with prune jam inside of each little ball. Served with a creme....

While I make them every once in a while, breakfast pastries are things I usually purchase.

[ladyyoung98]

bagels with cream cheese

croissants

sausage and cheese croissant

[Patrick S]

Hopefully I'm not offending any bagel purists, and I dont know that bagels are considered pastries, but on the rare occasion that I do eat something in the morning, a toasted french toast bagel with cool hazelnut cream cheese from Panera bread is one of my favorites. I love danishes too, cheese or fruit-filed, but never actually eat them in the morning. Fresh warm croissants with honey glaze is great for breakfast, or with a salad.

I only tried scones once, and like Verjuice described, it really did have the texture of sawdust. It scared me away from scones, so I never tried them again.

[browniebaker]

There's nothing as good as warm sweet rolls and strong Indian tea for breakfast!

Saturday and Sunday mornings are when I take the trouble to bake for breakfast, my absolute favorite breakfast pastry being cinnamon rolls with cream-cheese icing.

Other favorites to bake are Southern-style biscuits, English-style scones (not the cakey, sugary, overloaded American ones), yeasted Belgian waffles, bagels, and buttermilk pancakes (I just can't imagine going to a pancake house when pancakes are so good and easy to make at home.)

The pastries I buy are the ones that I can't make or usually won't go to the trouble of making, my favorite going back to childhood being the Chinese bo lo mien bao a/k/a pineapple bun (though I have a recipe for it; it's a bit of trouble to make.). Others I prefer to buy rather than bake are danishes (almond bear-claws!), croissants, and pains au chocolat.

[browniebaker]

I only tried scones once, and like Verjuice described, it really did have the texture of sawdust. It scared me away from scones, so I never tried them again.

←

The oft-unspoken or unknown truth about English and Scottish scones is that they are supposed to be rather dry and leaden. They are merely a vehicle for generous heaps of rich clotted cream and dollops of sweet fruit jams and curds.

No, they are not supposed to be fluffy or flakey like an (American) Southern biscuit.

No, they are not supposed to be eggy and cakey like an American muffin or coffee-cake.

American scones are mutations from the original: fatty, cakey, sugary, and overloaded with fruit, nuts, and chocolate precisely because people try to make them into pastries good enough to eat in themselves.

[corinne]

My absolute favorite is crumb cake. Very hard to find it properly made, which to my taste is with BIG crumbs and the cake almost breadlike instead of the oily, poundcake-like bottom most often featured. A friend used to bring it to me from a certain bakery in NJ, Clifton I think. Does anyone know this place? I had a piece at Zabar's last week. Sadly, it had the cakey bottom. The crumbs were pretty good, though.

Next week I'll be in Paris and intend to eat my fill of French breakfast pastry, especially croissants avec confiture et beurre (lots of butter and jam)

[Verjuice]

Another thing.

What's the general consensus on muffin bottoms? I love them but I've noticed that a lot of people throw them out.

What makes a perfect muffin?

Moist, but not too moist. Light, but not fluffy. Sweet, but not toothachingly so. I like it when the tops are crisp and browned and have a thin, chestnut-hued edge like a saucer. NO GRANULATED SUGAR ENCRUSTING THE TOPS! I don't like the tops and bottoms to be distinctly different, texturally.

Finally, I don't want to feel like I'm eating pound cake, but I don't want my muffins to remind me of gluten-free bran bread either. On the other hand, when they're overmixed, they get all tough and chewy. And that's an awful thing.

I've noticed that some of the better homemade muffins I've had have been made with a combination of butter and canola oil. Any thoughts on this?

[cakewalk]

So, I'm just after making those ginger scones as my first attempt at scone-making, and this is what happened (no laughing at a novice):

Actually everything seemed to be going along just fine until I started to cut out the scones. The recipe says it makes 8 scones; I got 24. Even though I used a 2 1/2 in cutter (actually, a glass) instead of a 3-inch as specified in the recipe, I figure I must have rolled the dough out much too thin. I didn't really roll it, I just kind of used the rolling pin to flatten the dough out a bit, but I guess I flattened it too much. So I figured I'll just bake it for less time than the recipe calls for, since I didn't want to mess around with the dough too much.

Then I realized I didn't have any parchment paper -- and I didn't want to butter the baking tray because I figured the scones would burn that way. So I used aluminum foil.

They were in a 400 degree oven for about 13-14 minutes. The recipe said they should bake until they begin to crack a bit on top. They didn't, but they started to brown on the bottom and I didn't want them to burn. So I took them out.

Now, I have nothing to compare them to since the only scones I've eaten are the kind you buy in a store, and those are really not good. These were good. Very good, in fact. They didn't need any clotted cream or jam or anything else, they were soft and tender and lovely, and I ate way too many. They are biscuity. There are, mercifully, a lot left over (which is a good thing, since I really didn't make them for me), and even now that they've cooled they're still soft. The only thing I would change is that I would mince the ginger into small, fine pieces. (And next time, I'll have the parchment paper and I'll cut much thicker scones!)

And I used heavy cream. (Screw the buttermilk -- and my trainer!)

[kitwilliams]

So, I'm just after making those ginger scones as my first attempt at scone-making, and this is what happened (no laughing at a novice):

cute story, cakewalk. but now i'm craving ginger scones. fortuntely, i'm driving up to l.a. in a bit so think i'll make a detour to la brea bakery. yes, those scones are delicious but when i've made them, they never quite turn out like the ones at the bakery. at least they haven't for me.

has anyone here eaten the real thing and baked them at home as well? how did they compare?

[andiesenji]

I bake ginger scones, made with my homemade candied ginger.

However the ones everyone likes best are apricot/ginger.

[jgarner53]

damn it all, now I'm craving a scone!