breakfast

Bring eggnog to the breakfast table with buttery, sugar-sprinkled scones.

The key to perfect scones is cold, grated butter — it's what creates those beautiful flaky layers you love.

In the Muffin Olympics, my favourite—bran muffins—would never even make the team. I get that gritty brown masses hardly have the appeal of blueberry-buttermilk, sweet-cornmeal, banana- walnut, and pumpkin-spice, but I’ve always enjoyed their quiet, nutty complexity—plus, it’s kind of adorable, the way I convince myself that they’re healthier, right? So I decided that they needed a makeover, and I reformatted them as scones, and pretty ones at that. Preloading the scones with jam makes them self-contained packets of breakfast luxury. Yes, like a jelly donut but still craggy and wholesome enough that we get to enjoy them way more often.

Turn this satisfying hash into a main course by topping it with poached or fried eggs and serving it with a salad.

These muffins are a fall favourite, but if you want to make them year-round (they’re that good), and can’t get your hands on pumpkin ale, cream ale works just as well.