Easter brunch.

Madison.

Having returned from two weeks in Europe, complete with loads of pictures,¹ there's really no shortage of things for show and tell. That said, sorting through pictures and notes - not to mention settling back into a new everyday routine - is going to take quite some time. I've managed to plow through about one sixth of the photos so far, sorting and refining,² and expect the rest to occupy me through the coming week. Until then, I'll drop in a quick summary of this year's Easter brunch.

Despite the fact that we called everyone just a day or two in advance, we had a good-sized group for brunch this year. As Sharon has a hard time getting excited about a fancy lamb dinner,³ we've settled into making brunch, which is essentially an excuse to make all of the breakfast foods we rarely have because they're too much work or too heavily loaded with butter and other good stuff to have on any regular basis. It's also an excuse to slide breakfast late enough in the day that it's acceptable to slip a little alcohol into the mix.

In this case, it was mimosas, volunteered and brought by Ben and Blythe. Bloody Marys would also have been acceptable, and, hey, I'd've had a martini if anyone offered to mix and pour.

The spread - which dominated the kitchen table, forcing most everyone to retire to the living room with plates on laps - included:

• Cranberry molasses bread. Made with the no-knead bread recipe to which I'm completely addicted, with a half-cup of molasses, two tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of Penzey's Cake Spice and a fistful of sweetened, dried cranberries. I was short on time to make it, so I doubled the yeast to half a teaspoon, kneaded for all of sixty seconds, and let it rise for about nine hours before baking. Still turned out quite well.
  
  
• Panettone from Cabibbo's Bakery.
  
  
• Blueberry pancakes, using the trusty recipe from Joy that I always use. If I'd remembered the clabbered milk trick, I'd've seen how that might compare to the buttermilk variation we usually make.
  
  
• Cranberry-lemon scones. More on these later.
  
  
• Roasted potatoes. I used German Butterballs, chunked into eighths, with just olive oil, salt and pepper. I dropped them into a preheated cast-iron skillet, shook them about on the stovetop for a few minutes, then finished them off in a 400°F oven until they started browning on top. By that point, the surfaces in contact with the skillet had turned a deep, crusty, delicious Maillard brown.
  
  
• Two fruit compotes (with creme fraiche). To accompany the usual overdose of pancake toppings - whatever jams happen to be open in the fridge; honey; and, of course, real maple syrup - we decided to use up some of the fruit we had about to make up a compote: roasted apples and pears, with some of the pureed strawberries set aside from last year. Then Regina and Jesse brought along another with spiced apples, and I forget what all else, with some creme fraiche to boot.
  
  
• Scrapple. The last of the homemade.
  
  
• Bacon. Also the last of the homemade.
  
  
• Pork tenderloin. Brined with brown sugar, juniper, rosemary and black pepper, then seared and roasted.

I'd toyed with the idea of making a brunch based around British and Greek cuisine, but dropped that idea pretty quickly. Baked beans and undercooked mushrooms - staples of the British breakfast - certainly wouldn't have gone over well. Scones, though, without the dairy overdose that is butter and clotted cream,⁴ sounded pretty good; they're essentially biscuits studded with fruit that don't need to be hot from the oven.



As may be apparent from the picture, I stick the biscuit school that errs on the side of undermixing, which means the following:

• I prefer to leave good-sized chunks of butter visible in the dough after mixing, because it gives a texture that's airy, crumbly, and delicate. Too delicate for any additional butter or jam, even, which is entirely unnecessary for something that's made of nearly as much fat as it is flour.
  
  
• Cutting rounds is a waste, so I prefer lumpy triangles, or, in the case of biscuits, vaguely squarish shapes. Scraps require additional working of the dough, which means they're going to be tougher than the first batch. I'm not a professional, so taste and texture trump appearance at all times. If they're too tall, too thin, they simply flop over as the butter melts, but it's a sure sign that the texture's just right.

Misshapen and fallen over, but they're just the way I like them, with crispy edges and soft interiors, especially when they've just cooled enough to handle. I use a recipe from Joy, which goes more or less like follows:

Cranberry-lemon scones
Makes 8 scones.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• ½ cup sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
  
• ½ teaspoon salt
  
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, but into pieces
  
• ½ cup fresh or frozen cranberries
  
• 1 egg
  
• ½ cup heavy cream
  
• Zest of a lemon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
   
   
2. Mix the dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder and salt - thoroughly in a large bowl. Drop in the cold butter and cut in with a pastry blender, until the largest pieces are a little bigger than peas. Do not allow the butter to melt.
   
   
3. Stir in the cranberries. They'll work fine still frozen, and straight from the freezer.
   
   
4. Whisk together the wet ingredients - egg, cream and lemon zest. Add to the dry ingredients, and stir just until everything is moistened. Gather the dough into a ball, kneading lightly against the sides of the bowl a few times to incorporate any loose bits. If it looks too dry, add a little extra cream (or milk, or water).
   
   
5. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into an eight-inch round. Cut into eight wedges and arrange on an ungreased baking sheet with plenty of space between each scone.
   
   
6. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, or until the edges turn crispy and brown. Should you want them to look extra sharp, brush the tops with a little cream or milk prior to baking, or sprinkle with coarse sugar. Serve warm, or cool on a rack.

* * * * *

¹Five hundred and eighy-eight, to be precise.

²With a brand new copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements at my disposal, I can adjust the images to look more or less as I'd intended, rather than how I actually shot them. (Fixing the white balance, rotating and cropping, shifting the pixel outputs levels... all those little things that are impossible to tell from looking at the miniature screen on the back of the camera.)

³Same goes for pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day. I love them both; she can't stand either. We have yet to start up a new tradition for the first big meal of the year that works for both of us.

⁴And jam, which are the traditional tea accompaniments for scones.