Saturday and Sunday mornings have a certain routine Chez Besotted – wake up, snooze, wake up, snooze, wake up, make coffee, make bacon & eggs, eat. I would never want anything to disrupt the rhythm and tradition of the first 6 activities, but, every once in awhile, even my beloved bacon & eggs get a bit stale.

Mixing it up with pancakes or muffins can be fun, but my absolute favorite breakfast pastry is a hot, buttery scone. If your only exposure to scones is Starbucks ersatz leaden imposters, try a homemade (or real bakery) version, and you’ll see how far from reality the S-bux kind are.

I made my first scone recipe out of the original Barefoot Contessa cookbook, and instantly fell in love with this puff of delicious, buttery flaky goodness. Whether made with fruit, maple syrup and oatmeal, or cheese, scones make an unbelievably special treat, particularly on blustery winter weekend mornings.

The recipe below is a personal concoction of dried cherries, cream, and ginger. A little sweet a little spice, and a little silken creaminess make a tremendous scone. Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Cherry and Ginger Cream Scones, Yields 12

Prep Time: 45 Minutes

Baking Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:

4 Cups Flour

2 Tbls. Sugar

2 Tbls. Baking Powder

2 Tsp. Salt

1 ½ Cups Butter

5 Eggs

1 Cup Heavy Cream

¾ Cup Dried Sour Cherries

1 Tbls. Candied Ginger

2 Tbls. Fresh Ginger, chopped

2 Tbls. Ground Ginger

Splash Milk

Raw Sugar

Preparation:

Before you do anything, get your butter and eggs prepared by beating 4 of the eggs and chopping the butter into small cubes (about ½ inch square). Once they’re done, put the eggs and butter back into the fridge to keep them extra cold – for that matter, keep the cream in the refrigerator until you need it.

Once you’re ready to go, preheat the oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Do all of the following actions very quickly, as you want the ingredients as cold as possible….

Add the butter pieces and mix on low speed until the butter is broken up into gravelly pieces (no bigger than a pea).

Add the eggs, fresh ginger, ground ginger, candied sugar, and heavy cream and mix until just blended. Stir in the sour cherries with a wooden spoon.

Dump the dough out onto a well-floured surface with well-floured hands – the dough is very sticky, so use as much flour as you need in small increments, but be careful not to make the dough too dry.

Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough out to a thickness of ¾ of an inch. Using a 2.5-3.5 inch cutter round (depending on the width that you desire), cut out rounds of dough and arrange on the baking sheet.

Once the dough rounds are lined up on the baking sheet, mix the last egg with a splash of milk to create the egg wash. Brush the dough with the egg wash, sprinkle with the raw sugar, and put into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool, split, butter, serve, and enjoy!

Doing this at home is wonderfully simple and costs about $50 less.

I am an unapologetic brunch fan, even though it is a near-disaster of a meal to go out for in Boston – in the winter time, you have to leave the luscious cocoon of goose-down warmth to brave the elements, wait 45 minutes to be seated nose-to-elbow with the table next to you, and pay an enormous mark-up for what is essentially fancy eggs or bread.

It should be the most reviled of all meals for its expense and aggravation, but it does have its positive attributes, namely that it has made public dining before bathing and pre-noon cocktails not only socially acceptable, but essentially requisite. Not only that, but only at brunch would battered and pan-fried toast slathered with Nutella and dotted with candied pecans be considered a meal and not dessert. It’s brilliant.

However, this mild economic downturn that we’ve been wading through does have me evaluating the cost and benefit of my expenditures. While I’m hardly one for abnegation, some smart moves can shave quite a few pennies (or dollars) off of your bill and make brunch expenditures much easier to swallow.

1. Pick and choose your spots (and your cities) – For us Bostonians, going over the river into Cambridge can halve your brunch bill, and I imagine there are similar areas in other metropolises. PT & I usually go to brunch in the South End, but I recently met my friend, W, at a popular brunch place in Harvard Square and it was half as expensive for the same meal. 
2. Be on the look out for deals – My brunch in Cambridge was so cheap because Grafton St. was offering $4 Bloody Marys, POPS in the South End gives out 4 POPS Dollars every time we go in for brunch, which is essentially a $4 coupon for a subsequent visit. There are a lot of restaurants vying for your business, so why not make them work for it? 
3. Do brunch at home. Buy yourself some bloody mary mix, fire up the coffeemaker, and save a ton of dough by doing brunch at home. In a recent weekend, I met up with darling LN at Stephanie’s on Newbury for a $65 brunch (for both of us, including tax & tip); we each had one bloody mary and a salad. The next day, PT and I decided to do bagels, cream cheese, and lox at home; the bagels and wild smoked salmon came to $7.77, assuming $3-4 for the other ingredients which we already had, plus another $5 for homemade bloody marys, the total is closer to $16. $65 for service and someone else to wash up, $16 for staying in slippers. I’ll take the $16… at least once in awhile.

Despite the state of the economy, we must still eat, and we want to eat well. With a few minor changes, you can have your pan-fried bread slathered with Nutella and eat it, too.

Valentine’s Day is almost here, love is in the air, and what better way to suss out the relationship potential with your latest paramour, than by employing the time-tested and proven Bacon & Egg Relationship Barometer.

There is nothing more soothing than a hearty weekend brunch to cure what ails you. Whether it’s stress, the common cold, or an overzealous hangover, a big pile of bacon, steaming and oozing eggs, thick toast, and strong coffee are the quintessential cure-all. That is, unless your morning meal is fraught with relationship-status-speculation, or RSS.

We often refer to the awkwardness of the “morning after” during a couple’s (however liberally you choose to make that assignation) first few nights together, but I prefer to refer to it as the “meal after”, if, for no other reason, than that it’s a bit more accurate.

Not just a brunch staple anymore, that little frying yolk can foretell your romantic future.

Whether alone or with company, I make bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and coffee every Saturday and Sunday morning (unless going out for brunch), and I’ve found that doing so with a new guy provides an eerily accurate barometer of the health of the new relationship. [Note: the test is only proven accurate with Bacon & Eggs and will not give an accurate reading if attempted with cereal, Pop-Tarts, etc.]

The following are a few scenarios that you may encounter should you choose to take the B&E reading on your relationship:

1. You make B&E for both of you, only to find that as you devour them, he is pushing them around listlessly on his plate.

Prognosis: Bad Sign – either he’s man-orexic or he’s too busy concocting an escape plan. Neither bodes particularly well for the future.

2. As usual, you get up to make your B&E and find yourself feeling overly burdened by the obligation of cracking 2 extra eggs and dumping a few more pieces of bacon into the frying pan (not to mention, adding two more scoops of coffee to the coffeemaker!).

If adding those 3 extra slices was SO HARD.... he might not be the one for you.

Prognosis: Bad Sign – It was likely the vodka you were so crazy about last night (or for the last two weeks) and not him, if the most meager of tasks make you feel overburdened. Do the polite thing and finish your breakfast together, and then literally and figuratively, show him to the door.

3. You make B&E for the two of you (willingly, if not enthusiastically), sit down and feel relaxed as you munch and chat together over breakfast.

Prognosis: Good Sign (Excellent Sign if he offered to help at any stage) – you will soon be nauseating your friends and strangers as you swiftly exit RSS and embark on the honeymoon phase of blissful dating.

 
This post was mainly written in jest (though I did encounter all of the aforementioned scenarios, including a few others that were just too odd to mention). The moral of the story, however, is to remember the emotional power that food has – to bind us, to make us feel nurtured, cared for, or, in certain circumstances, smothered. Choose the recipients of your culinary largesse wisely.