the anatomy of a perfect breakfast in bed + a giveaway

can i tell you something that might make you throw up in your mouth a little bit? i made breakfast in bed for eggboy a lot during harvest. multiple times a week. really elaborate and adorable ones complete with miniature things and cute flatware.

his schedule was all wonky since he had to work into the wee hours of the morning and sleep until 11 or noon. i thought about switching my schedule too, but with the shorter days and less sunlight, i usually needed to wake up at my regular 7:55ish in order to get my ducks in a row and ready to be photographed. so at some point between the hours of when i would wake up and when he would wake up, i'd often decide that it would be fun to do a thing i love most: arrange cute little meals on a cute little tray, just like i used to every year for mum's birthday...

speaking of mum's birthday: it's tomorrow!!!!! yayayayay! i sent her a copy of steph's book that eggboy and i annotated with fun notes pointing out our favorite recipes and pictures. and it's no coincidence that i'm posting this the day before her birthday in case anyone in chicago (hint hint, stoop) is reading this and wants to make her breakfast in bed.

so without further ado...

the anatomy of a perfect breakfast in bed

something sweet: a cookie, a bite of nougat, a shot of cake batter. the best days start with a little something sweet.

carefully packaged liquids: coffee mugs that aren't too full, juice in a jar with a lid, a traveler mug, hell, a juice box. sleepy people are clumsy people. sleepy people in beds are really clumsy people.

extra napkins or a towel: just in case.

condiments and seasonings: to be perfectly honest, my little tabasco bottles and maldon tin and baby bon maman jars are a disproportionately large reason why i love making breakfasts in bed. they give me a cute attack every time i look at them. and they're obviously useful because if you actually think that any mother of mine would eat an unsalted, un-hot-sauced egg, even if it were delivered to her in bed, you are cray.

things that don't take too long to make: do you know how awful it is to be mid-breakfast-in-bed-prep and have the person you're making it for wake up and walk into the kitchen? mega awful.

things that aren't too noisy to make: this is an obvious one. be mindful of kitchen timers, blenders, coffee grinders, and those god-awful microwave beeps.

in this breakfast in bed, we have: grape ricotta focaccia (recipe coming soon!), an egg, dala horse cookies, tabasco, maldon salt, yogurt with nuts and honey, green juice, a nell & mary napkin, a little gold spoon, and obviously coffee.

that tray, plate, bowl, and jar are all part of a special breakfast in bed set from pacific merchants, and guess what-- i'm giving one away!!!! yayayayayayayyyyy! to enter this giveaway, leave a comment with your ultimate breakfast in bed! (open to u.s. residents only.) update: this giveaway is now closed.

-yeh!

apple & honey muffins

alright so as of right now, my rosh hashanah menu consists of:

challah

more challah

tacos

and these apple and honey muffins (when i imagined myself getting all sticky from balancing a jar of honey and slicing an apple in the cramped little cab of a tractor, i got all squirmy...)

do i need to have a vegetable? i should probably have a vegetable. who has easily transportable autumn-y vegetable recipe suggestions??

and maybe i'll try to stuff some matzo balls down the nozzle of our big tall thermos.

i've never been the biggest fan of honey cake. either that, or by the time dessert rolls around i'm just so stuffed with brisket and challah that i could give zero shits about what the dessert table looks like. guilt came over me this year though when i realized that i've been treating a cake--a cake!--with such little love and respect. so i fiddled with it, failed a bunch, read five thousand recipes, pulled knowledge that i learned from my homemade funfetti® process, and came up with a honey cake that i am proud to call a friend.

this is a no-pressure, low-commitment honey cake that is actually a muffin, so you can get away with eating it at breakfast, lunch, or whenever you want. you do not need to wait until after brisket. you can load the sucker up with cream cheese, yogurt, buttercream, or any other dairy product of your affection and be 100% kosher about it. and you can even toss it around a tractor as your fiancé chisel plows and you let your challah digest. the texture is on the pleasingly denser side and the honey doesn't overpower. apples keep it *moist* and just a teensy bit of whiskey in the batter adds a yummy little zing while leaving you more than enough to sip on while you celebrate. 

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apple + honey muffins

makes 12-16

ingredients

2 c all-purpose flour

1 c sugar

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

a pinch of cardamom

2 large eggs

1/3 c vegetable oil

1/2 c honey

2 tb whiskey

1/4 c hot coffee

1 large apple, chopped

clues

preheat oven to 350, and line and grease a muffin tin. 

in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients. in a large bowl, combine eggs, oil, honey, and whiskey. whisk in the dry ingredients and then whisk in the coffee. fold in the chopped apple and then scoop into your muffin tin.

bake until golden brown and a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at about 20 minutes.

let cool and enjoy!

i like sprinkling them with powdered sugar or plopping a nice blob of yogurt on top. 

-yeh!

ingredients for this recipe were provided by minnesota grown, which makes it easier for minnesota ladies (like me!) and gents to support their local farmers! thanks, minnesota grown!!!

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p.s. the winner of last week's giveaway has been notified! 

marzipan dark chocolate scones with raspberry jam

contrary to what everybody from my life as a new yorker probably thinks, there's a lot of human interaction on the farm. human and kitty interaction. i don't think i left the farm once this weekend, except to pick up the newspaper, yet i still had at least eight units of human interaction. farmer wade came to talk to farmer gene, farmer brad came to deliver three dozen (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) eggies from his chickies, farmer eggdad went about his daily business, and farm girl emily came over with the loveliest ladies for the booziest delightfullest brunch. it's an exciting time because planting just started, so suddenly everyone is outside, milling about, fixing things, putting things in things, gossiping (?)...

and eating scones!!

this weekend all of the hello-nice-to-meet-yous and thank-yous-for-your-eggs came with a scone or four. it was so much fun! everyone smiled a lot and went gaga over them, but i really can't take all the credit because they are based on sarah's recipe. she always posts the prettiest scones and finally they tempted me to make scones for the first time since i stopped doing the overnight shift at the town bakery. 

when i worked the night shift at the bakery, i made a sploogillion scones every night at around 2 am. i became the queen of butter cubing and got to the point where i could get three batches into the oven in approximately negative seconds. the first time i made sarah's recipe, i noticed the dough was much more wet than the bakery's, so i was a little bit nervous, but when they came out of the oven i just about died: they were heavenly. so light, so cake-y, so perfect for noshing on while sipping a mimosa. 

marzipan dark chocolate scones with raspberry jam

makes 8 scones

based on sarah's recipe

ingredients

8 oz marzipan

1 tb powdered sugar

1/2 c dark chocolate chips

2 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

3 tb sugar

1 tb baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

12 tb unsalted butter, chilled and chopped into  1/2-inch pieces

1/2 c + 2 tb buttermilk or heavy cream

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 c raspberry jam

clues

preheat oven to 400. line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside. 

chop the marzipan into small pieces, about the same size as your chocolate chips, and then toss the pieces with the powdered sugar so that they don't stick together. place in a large bowl with the chocolate chips and set aside.

in a food processor, pulse to combine the flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, the baking powder, and the salt. add the butter cubes and pulse until the butter is pea-sized.

add this mixture to the bowl with the marzipan. in a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the buttermilk or heavy cream, the eggs, and the extracts. add this to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined with a wooden spoon. turn the dough onto a floured surface and pat out two round discs (try not to work the dough too much). cut each disc into 4 equal triangles and transfer the triangles to the baking sheet. brush with the remaining 2 tablespoons of buttermilk or heavy cream and sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.

poke a divot into the center of each and spoon in 2-3 teaspoons of jam.

bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

enjoy them all to yourself or give some away immediately because these are best enjoyed the day of!

-yeh!

this morning

we woke up this morning to our new neighbor, mister woodpecker. i think his jump-off is the electrical pole across the gravel road. i can deal with that, especially when his peck peck pecking has such a nice earthy tone that's so in tune with his birdie friends.

it feels like we're on vacation was the first real thing eggboy said when he woke up.

i think this is why people like farms, was my thought as i headed to the kitchen to capture the delicious light that pours in on a cloudy day like today. it's supposed to snow later.

-yeh!