breakfast Archives - Page 7 of 7

Sunny-Side-Up Apricot Pastry (Plus tips on vanilla pastry cream!)

January 14, 2008December 9, 2019 Zoë François 14 Comments

Sunny-Side-Up Apricot Pastry | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François — Photo by Mark Luinenburg from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

In Minnesota for the past week it has been a little too gray for my taste. The one consolation to all the cold and snow we get around here are the endless clear blue skies. They are rather remarkable and make the winters tolerable. When they refuse to show themselves through the clouds I go cold. This means I need a little something to brighten up my day. Something sweet! Something easy and quick. Sunny-Side-Up Apricot Pastry (p. 225) will do the trick. A combination of buttery brioche, luscious vanilla pastry cream and tangy sweet apricots. Read More

Why is peeling a boiled egg so HARD???

November 13, 2007December 16, 2018 Graham 10 Comments

This morning my 8 year old son asked me for hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Nothing fancy, just a few whole eggs topped with salt and pepper. I went to the CIA, so this request should have seemed like a walk in the park, right? Let me start by telling you about the eggs. My husband works by a small farm which is tucked into the sprawl of suburbia. They sell wonderfully fresh organic eggs, which have yolks the color of marigolds and taste wonderful. My kids have been to the farm and have chased the chickens that lay the eggs they eat. They now want to raise chickens in our yard. But I digress from my egg peeling dilemma. By the time the eggs made it to the table, half of the whites were spiraling down the garbage disposal. I presented the remainder to my son and he said “these look like zombie heads!” He was thrilled with my presentation and ate them like an 8 year old savage eating zombie heads. This was not the effect I was going for.

Blowing up popover pancakes with Sasha

October 17, 2007November 3, 2007 Graham 15 Comments

One of my first adventures in cooking was when I was 8 with my friend Sasha. We lived together on a commune in central Vermont. Despite the fact that there were dozens of adults living with us we were given freedom to roam, often unsupervised. This laissez-faire attitude allowed us the luxury to bake with wild abandon and make up recipes using just about everything we could find and reach. The fact that we were both 8 years old meant everything we made had to be sweet. This is where my love of “pastry” was born.