Breakfast Pastries

By Food & Wine
Updated January 11, 2017
These terrific recipes include gooey cinnamon-pecan buns and buttery oversize biscuits.
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Cinnamon-Pecan Buns

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
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The soft and sticky dough for these baking powder-boosted sweet buns—made without butter or oil—gets its richness from pureed cottage cheese. Don't worry that the cut dough spirals look a little lost in the springform pan; as they bake, they rise and puff into a perfect round of pull-apart buns.

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Bannock Scones with Three Butters

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Bannock may traditionally be a heavy flatbread, but in the hands of chef Paul Berglund it becomes a tender, fluffy scone.

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Guava-Cream Cheese Pastries

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These delicious pastelitos "filled pastries" have a crisp, buttery puff-pastry shell. They're a great, easy-to-make dessert.

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Butterscotch Sticky Buns

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"Over-the-top, sticky, gooey goodness—or, as I like to call it, 'love.'" That's how pastry chef Catherine Schimenti describes the thrilling moment she first dipped a warm sticky bun into sweet-salty butterscotch sauce. Schimenti flavors the sauce with a splash of Scotch. "I love adding glamour to old-school desserts," she says.

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Oversize Breakfast Biscuits

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"Saturday mornings at the deli are all about the biscuits," says Matt Neal. "Our friends, the farmers, everyone is always clamoring for them. Some people get two filled biscuits at a time, but that's a lot." When he's rolling out the dough, he gives it two turns to evenly distribute the butter and make the biscuits extra-flaky. Then he serves them with different fillings: house-made spiced pastrami (mustard is optional); cheddar and a breakfast-sausage patty; or classic strawberry jam.

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Orange Popovers

Credit: Photo © Matthew Armendariz - mattbites.com
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Grace Parisi loves popovers, but baking them can be tricky: They don't always rise as they should. For these foolproof ones, Grace adds a bit of baking powder to the batter and chooses to use a regular (not nonstick) muffin tin.

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Raspberry-Swirl Sweet Rolls

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In the winter, Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) fruit, like the kind sold by Cascadian Farm, is often a superior alternative to fresh fruit shipped to the US. IQF raspberries are terrific in these soft, puffy yeast rolls—a fun twist on a cinnamon bun.

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Glazed Lemon-Ginger Scones

Credit: Con Poulos
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Aimee Olexy’s lemony, cream-based scones are light, moist and laced with pieces of chewy candied ginger.

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Crêpes with Sweet Yogurt and Raspberry-Apricot Sauce

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These crêpes are like free-form blintzes, with thick and creamy Greek-style yogurt standing in for the cheese filling and a quick topping made with preserves and frozen raspberries.

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Orange-Cranberry Scones with Turbinado Sugar

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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These pleasantly dense cranberry-studded scones get a toffeelike flavor from light brown turbinado sugar, which has large, crunchy crystals. Sugar in the Raw is a good brand.

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White House Honey-Oat Muffins

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Chef Spike Mendelsohn was inspired by the new beehive in the White House garden to make these lovely, not-too-sweet muffins. "I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I have muffins in my house right now," he says.

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Peach Streusel Cake

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This cake is perfect all year because it calls for frozen peaches.

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Yogurt-Zucchini Bread with Walnuts

Credit: © Frances Janisch
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This moist, nutty bread is a terrific way to use up late-summer zucchini. The walnuts in the bread are super-heart-healthy, and the yogurt adds moisture without any fat.

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Strawberry-Almond Scones

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When baking these scones, be sure to use whole wheat pastry flour, which is less dense than whole wheat flour. Mixing in some all-purpose white flour also lightens the texture of the scones, so they're more delicate and tender.

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Souffléed Strawberry Jam Omelets

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These ethereal free-form soufflés--filled with strawberry jam--are equally good for brunch or dessert.

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Pecan-Honey Buns

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The honeyed glaze on these sticky, nutty breakfast rolls is luscious and soft when warm, then turns nicely chewy when cool.

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Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins

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Like banana bread, these especially moist muffins by F&W's Grace Parisi are a great way to use up overripe bananas. Chopped toasted pecans would be delicious in them, too.

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Lemon-and-Orange-Glazed Pound Cake

Credit: Photo © Fredrika Stjärne
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This cake can be made ahead and kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

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Baked Currant Doughnuts

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Christy Timon opened her bakery in 1982, hiring Abram Faber to help with deliveries. The now-married couple are revered as early champions of classic European baking. They continue to hunt down rare recipes, like these light doughnuts adapted from Robert Jörin, a third-generation Swiss baker at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.

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