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- Nutritionists tell us that the most important meal of the day is breakfast.

I don't really care about that, I just know it's the most delicious meal, and it's because of the bread groups, I mean, think about it, Pancakes, waffles, bagels, biscuits, coffee cake.

What's the pinnacle of a classy breakfast?

It's eggs benedict on an English muffin, but don't go running to the bread aisle too quickly.

You can make these things at home, I'll show you how.

(upbeat guitar music) Okay, we're gonna start with something really basic, and that is biscuits.

Because biscuits can be the, kind of the foundation of lots of different kinds of breakfasts, but especially biscuits and gravy, which is a real family favorite, especially in my monastic family.

Now, the nice thing about biscuits is you can really make it pretty much with three ingredients, self-rising flour, some kind of fat, and that could be butter or shortening or lard, and then buttermilk.

That's really pretty much all you need.

So we're gonna start with this really basic recipe and you'll learn some techniques along the way that we're gonna be using later on as well.

So I'm starting with two cups of self-rising flour that already has the baking powder and the salt already mixed in.

Now you can make your own self-rising flour at home if all you have is all purpose flour, and the recipes for that are online and easily can be found.

This is six tablespoons of vegetable shortening.

Now, you will find in traditional biscuits like this, or southern biscuits in particular, the amount of shortening really changes.

Some recipes will say two tablespoons, some recipes will say half a cup.

I'm kind of splitting the difference between the two and using six tablespoons, and it's room temperature.

Now I'm gonna use, you can use a lot of different tools for this particular process of cutting the fat into the flour, okay?

Among them, are these two beauties, and these are what we consider a traditional pastry blender.

Okay?

This one on the left with the wires is kind of the more old fashioned kind, and it works well with soft things like shortening or room temperature butter.

Later on, when we start working with a colder butter, like a frozen butter, we're gonna need this one with the hard blades, okay?

What I'm gonna use is an old fashioned granny fork.

A lot of people don't even know what this is.

You may have seen one at a garage sale or maybe in the drawer at your grandma's house, and not knowing what it is.

It's specifically designed to make biscuits so that you only need one tool.

This will cut the shortening in and can be used to mix the buttermilk.

So we're just going to use this to kind of mash the shortening into the flour until we get something that looks like coarse crumbs.

So, as you can see, the little tines there are kind of set aside and they are kind of mashing the shortening in and mixing it together.

You kind of spin the bowl as you do it.

Takes a little bit of patience.

It actually goes faster with a pastry blender but I like the fact that I won't have to wash two tools when it's done.

When I add the buttermilk, this will mix this as well.

Now you continue this process until what you get looks like coarse crumbs.

Now, that's a little too large of a piece of shortening, so we're gonna mash this just a little bit longer until it's more like coarse crumbs, and you'll be able to see that in just a minute.

Like I said, it goes a little faster with the other tool, but I kind of like using this old fashioned thing.

But you do want to see some pieces.

Look there, there, now we got coarse crumbs, see?

You got some larger pieces and that's what's gonna give you the fluffy texture in your biscuit.

And then I'm just gonna add the buttermilk.

Some people say make a well in the center, I say just pour it in.

So here I can use the same tool instead of getting out another wooden spoon or a dough whisk or something.

This is gonna be a very soft dough, softer than biscuits that you would cut out with a cutter.

I'll talk about that in just a little bit.

This is gonna make a fluffy biscuit.

Now, you will hear a debate between fluffy and flaky biscuits, okay?

Flaky is kind of the new trend.

Fluffy biscuits are the more old fashioned kind.

And it may depend upon, in your family, it may depend upon whether you came from the northern part of the United States or the Southern part, or whether your family heritage is white or African American.

There's a lot of different arguments, and sometimes kind of contentious.

This just happens to be what I think is the easiest recipe, and therefore that's where we're gonna start out.

Okay, now you can see it's really sticky.

It's really sticky.

So we're gonna have to move this around in our hands a little bit.

They say to knead it four or five, six strokes, something like that.

I find it's best to just leave it in the bowl and squish it around a little bit.

And you're gonna get, like I said, it's gonna be a very soft dough, but that's exactly what you want.

And it's gonna be all over your hands and it's gonna be a mess, and you'll be like, "I'm getting it wrong."

No, you're fine, everything's fine.

No need to panic.

It does, it's a good idea though, to have a rubber spatula nearby.

So we're gonna put a little bit of flour on the countertop so that we can knead this a little bit more, okay?

Just a tiny bit, you don't want too much.

Let's move a little more space here, so we can actually... do a little bit more work.

Now there are probably grandmothers down in Alabama who are watching this with horror because of something I'm doing that's different than the way they did it.

That's okay, I can live with that.

But we're just, that's all we're gonna do, just a couple little folds like that.

And then we're literally just gonna fold it into a square.

Now, you can flatten it into an oval and start using cutters.

I like this particular method for what we might call "cat head" biscuits, okay?

That's based on what their size is supposed to be, about the size of a cat's head, okay?

I'm actually gonna clean my hands off so I can do this a little more neatly, because this is driving me a little bit crazy.

I'll be right back.

Alright, I'm back.

Now, actually, it's good for me to step away from this a little bit because it firms up a little bit more, okay?

As the flour starts to absorb the buttermilk, okay?

And what I'm gonna do, this is gonna be very simple.

Rather than cut them out with the different cutters, okay, I'm simply gonna divide these into nine pieces, okay?

Easy to manage, okay?

I'm just gonna divide it into nine equal pieces, just like that.

Okay.

And then we'll go this way.

Let's make sure those are gonna be relatively even, that could be a little bit lower there.

If it sticks, that's okay.

You could use a sharp knife to do this as well.

I just like using this little bench knife.

So you've got nine relatively even portions, and if they're not perfectly even, that's not gonna destroy anything.

And then all we're gonna do is tuck those corners down and lay them in the pan.

And if you have some that are larger or smaller, then you can kind of alternate every other one.

People who watch me regularly know that I'm not a person who really particularly cares to fuss over things.

Cat head biscuits are supposed to be kind of rough and something you can throw together quickly.

Now, I do want you to learn how to make those flaky biscuits, and I will show you that in just a little bit, but for right now, we're just going on with these fluffy cat head biscuits.

I think I'm gonna alternate that one with this one.

There we go.

Now the point of a cat head biscuit, among other things, is that you're supposed to push them together so they help each other rise.

So we're actually gonna flatten these slightly and take that largest piece and drop it right in the middle.

That'll be the big fat one for me, okay?

Don't worry about making them perfect, okay?

Because they're gonna poof in the oven, okay?

Because of the baking powder, the buttermilk, the shortening, all of that's gonna happen.

So the ovens at 400 degrees, I'm gonna pop these in for about 20 minutes and you'll see how glorious they are.

Oh, there we go.

Look at those.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Those are gonna be lovely, fluffy biscuits.

Now, if you'd like a smaller pan, like say a, a cast iron skillet, an eight inch cast iron skillet, that's got the sloping sides, these would've poofed up a little bit more, but these are gonna be just fine.

We'll cut them in half, put on a little bit of butter and honey, they'll be good to go.

Another breakfast spread that is common and uses a very similar technique is scones.

Now, if you're from Northern England or Scotland, you pronounce it "scon," if you're from Canada or the United States, you pronounce it "scone."

Either one is appropriate in the United States.

I'm just letting you know that in advance, in case some, you know, some food snob comes over and tries you to tell you how to pronounce it.

Remember, ask a Frenchman to pronounce "krwasan" instead of "croissant," okay?

You know, we Americanized it, it's okay.

So, it's gonna use that same kind of technique of cutting butter into flour.

So what we have here is all-purpose flour, and then I'm gonna add three tablespoons of sugar, a half a teaspoon of salt, a whole tablespoon of baking powder.

And we're just gonna whisk those all together.

So that they're well blended.

Next up, I gotta prepare my liquids, which is gonna be one egg, and this is one of the things that sets scones apart from biscuits, is that they use an egg and that they've got more sugar in them.

And that's two-thirds of a cup right there of heavy cream.

Only way to make scones is with heavy cream, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, you can make them, in fact, with ordinary milk, but to do that, you need to add a little bit more butter, because they're not quite rich enough, they can be a little dry.

A lot of people complain about scones being too dry, but maybe because they don't have enough fat in them, either from butter or from the cream.

So this is just a half stick of butter, and we're gonna cut it in, just like we did before with the biscuits, using our pastry cutter.

This is cold, cold, cold butter, okay?

Actually had this in the freezer, okay?

Because you really want to get fluffiness out of your scones as well and with less of the fat to do it with, you gotta make sure that those layers stay distinct with your butter being especially cold.

Okay, once again, I have coarse crumbs, which is how we got that nice flakiness in the, fluffiness in the first biscuit and flakiness in the second.

Some of those pieces could be a little smaller, I guess.

And then we're gonna add our liquids.

And then we're gonna gently stir this.

Again, we're gonna get a very soft dough.

We're gonna have to get our hands into it before too long.

Now, I'm gonna stop now before I get too much further.

And you might think, well, it's not all the way mixed.

Yes, but I wanna add some blueberries.

I especially like blueberries in scones, and I don't want to crush them.

I wanna mix this together very gently, but I don't wanna over-mix the scone dough, so then I'll get a tough scone instead of a flaky, tender one and it will dry out, et cetera, et cetera.

So you can see how very gently this is all coming together.

And eventually I'm gonna get it out onto the countertop.

You wanna make sure your blueberries are fresh and very, very cold so they won't squish.

That's the main thing.

Some people will freeze them but if you use the ones that are pre-frozen from the store, those are really liquidy, and you're gonna run into some problems.

So this requires some work on the countertop to really come together smoothly and carefully.

I'm not pressing down too hard, I'm just kind of squishing things together, little-by-little.

It's not quite as wet as biscuit dough.

If I had a slightly larger bowl, I think I would've kept it there to do this part.

Just keep tucking those in, pressing gently, not smashing them too terribly hard.

Because you don't want them to burst.

That's not gonna provide you with a good product.

You kind of press things together, little-by-little.

You're gonna do a little bit of kneading, but not too much, because, again, see how those, see, that's starting to break, that one's starting to break.

So you gotta be very careful, you wanna keep this...

Fairly... soft.

You want those all mixed in and spread around.

All right, we're gonna spread this out onto a pizza pan.

That's the easiest thing, because this goes out to about eight inches.

That's kind of a standard size, and I find that a pizza pan is the best way to do that.

If you've got an ordinary sheet tray, or even a nine by 13, you can do the exact same thing.

We're gonna gently press this out.

Try not to squish the... blueberries too much, oh, they're so good looking.

So pretty.

That one's coming out a little bit.

We're gonna tuck him in a little more.

All right.

That's gonna be big enough, now I'm gonna divide my scones in advance.

Okay, so I'm gonna actually cut 'em now and separate them slightly.

So once again, I'm gonna clean off my hands, I'll be right back.

All right, so I'm gonna take an ordinary pizza cutter and divide this into eight sections.

You can use a big sharp knife too, but I find a rotary pizza cutter is a little easier to work with.

Okay, there we go.

Oh, we got a rogue blueberry there.

Have to tuck him back in somewhere.

Right there looks fine, okay?

Then, very gently, I'm gonna separate these out slightly.

Well, they're very tender.

And with the blueberries in, they tend to be kind of fragile at this stage.

So that's okay.

You just wanna separate them slightly so that they will bake on all sides And then, kinda to be extra special here, we're gonna brush the tops with cream.

That's traditional, heavy cream.

So you gotta have a little extra heavy cream.

Gently, you kind of pat it on.

This brush is a tiny bit stiff.

There we go.

A little brushing all over the top of these, which will... add flavor and tenderness and then a little bit of turbinado sugar, or demerara sugar.

It's the larger, coarser grained sugar.

And that just gives them a little bit of crunch on the top.

If you make cinnamon scones, believe me, this on the top of them is a revelation.

It's amazing.

But I like it with this blueberry scone as well.

Another possibility, of course, is to put in, you know how lemon goes well with blueberries, you can use lemon... lemon zest as an addition to your dough and get that lemon flavor, or even lime.

If you ever had a lime blueberry muffin, or something like that, that's a really great flavor.

Okay.

So a light sprinkling don't go, don't go overboard with that, okay?

These will go in the oven once again, 4:25.

About 12 to 15 minutes.

Sometimes a little bit longer if you like 'em darker, but we'll see that in a minute.

And those are ready to serve.

Now, I love a sweet, tender scone to serve with coffee or tea, but you can make savory scones as well, and that's what I'm gonna be doing next.

While my friend, Chef Matt, shows us how to make sausage gravy.

I have a really big herb garden at home and I love making things with herbs.

So I thought savory scones would be a way to go.

You make them just like any other scone except for no egg, and instead of the liquid being cream or milk or buttermilk, I'm gonna use crushed tomatoes, because this is gonna be tomato basil scones.

And that is gonna be accompanied by a delicious Italian sausage gravy, which my friend, Chef Matt, here, is gonna be making for us.

- Well, Father, that that's great.

Yeah, I think everybody knows that biscuits and gravy are staple throughout the country, and the traditional biscuits that you made earlier with the traditional sausage gravy, I think everybody has a rendition of their own that they're gonna make.

Today, we're gonna make a Italian gravy with an Italian sausage, with three or four different types of peppers.

And those peppers are gonna tie in perfect with your scones.

- I like the heat.

(meat sizzling) - [Mathew] Well that's a hot pan.

Yeah, you wanna start your pan hot.

You do not need any oil.

There's plenty of fat.

- Oh, you don't oil the pan?

- [Mathew] There's plenty of fat in the sausage.

- [Dominic] Oh, wow.

- So what we're doing here-- - Oh, you're smart.

- We're just gonna render out the fat and we're actually gonna use all that fat to make a roux.

- To make the roux, yeah.

- To thicken the gravy.

(meat sizzling) Yeah, a lot of people will drain the roux, or drain the fat off, and put in butter or another fat, another oil.

- No.

What's be the point of that?

- This saves all that good pork fat.

- [Dominic] Yeah.

- [Mathew] It keeps the flavor of the sausage.

(meat sizzling) - [Dominic] And then I'm gonna add some fresh herbs that I just chopped.

This is basil and oregano and a little bit of parsley, and a little bit of rosemary, and just kind of an Italian blend.

- Now, Father, what are you using to stir that with?

- That's a Danish dough whisk.

It's also called a brodpisker.

It's not a very nice name, but it's used to mix doughs, especially good for yeast doughs because it helps aerate it more, but it makes a biscuit doughs mix together faster, okay?

- Sure, now I've seen bread whisks before, that one looks like it has a few years on it.

- Yeah.

(Dominic laughing) I got this probably in the early '70s.

Yeah, it's been around for a while.

The tool's been around for a long time.

- And how about this, here?

- [Dominic] That's from the late 1800s.

That's my mezzaluna that I used to chop the herbs with.

- [Mathew] When you were chopping for Fred Flintstone?

- Yeah, right?

(Dominic laughing) Yeah, yeah.

- Bread Flintstone, here, making your breakfast.

- There it is.

Now I just put in this mixture of basil and rosemary and oregano and a little bit of parsley, and then I'm just gonna add... crushed tomatoes as the liquid and turn that into the dough.

And I think that's gonna pair really well with your flavors as well.

- You know, Father, while you're stirring that, I'm just, we're at a point where we've rendered out most of the fat.

And what I want to do here is I'm gonna add about a tablespoon and a half to two tablespoons and I'm just, it's all gonna kinda-- - [Dominic] Is it all-purpose flour?

- [Mathew] I'm sorry, yes, all-purpose flour.

- [Dominic] Okay.

You don't need a special flour.

- It's all gonna kind of coat the meat, and at this point, you'll see that most, if not all the fat, is soaked up by the flour and back into the meat.

At this point, we're gonna put in three cups of whole milk.

- [Dominic] Wow, that's a lot.

- [Mathew] Well... - [Dominic] It's gonna be a lot of gravy, which is good.

- If you have extra gravy, it never hurts.

- [Dominic] It's not like that hurts.

Yeah, like there's a problem.

"There's too much gravy," said no one, ever.

(Matt chuckling) - So at this point, I'm gonna put in four different types of peppers.

I'm gonna put in your traditional black pepper.

This is what you're gonna see in a lot of sausage gravies.

We got about a tablespoon and a half of that.

And then we're gonna add white pepper, just about a half teaspoon or white pepper.

A half teaspoon of paprika.

- Okay, I like that.

- Which will add a nice smokiness.

- Yeah, a smokiness.

- A little bit of color to go with your-- - Yeah.

- With your scones, and then some cayenne which will give it some heat.

That's only about a half a teaspoon.

- Okay.

- So what we're gonna do now is just let it sit, let it cook, bring it back up to the boil, and it'll it'll thicken for us.

The best thing about this recipe, if you like it spicier, no problem, add some more cayenne.

If you wanted a little smokier, again, you can add some more white pepper, you can add some more paprika.

That's the best thing about cooking, you know, with doughs and breads, you have to be really specific with the science of the of the process, in recipes like this, you can adjust them to the way that you like them.

So if you like things hotter, or maybe you don't think, you don't like things quite as spicy, you can actually even have more pork in there if you want.

- [Dominic] All right, so I'm just dropping this dough into an ordinary brownie pan, eight by eight.

Okay, does not need any kind of special care.

- [Mathew] I feel like I can even do that.

- [Dominic] Yeah, you could probably manage that.

- [Mathew] I'm not the best baker, but I could probably do that.

- [Dominic] You can just, that's all you gotta do.

You kind of squish it flat into the pan.

There's really nothing to it.

- Father, I just turned up the heat on high here, because we do want to get it to a boil.

- Okay.

Is that to get the flour to expand?

- [Mathew] It's gonna get the flour expand, so we're gonna thicken.

- Okay.

- And then it's gonna get some of the flour taste out of it.

- Okay.

- That can make your sauce a little bitter.

- I've not done a whole lot of sausage gravy.

I'm more likely to make sauces, like for pizza, you know?

- Sure.

- Like a Mornay sauce or something like that.

So, but it works the same principle.

- Yeah, and it's so easy.

A lot of people are scared of this, to make it at home, but, you know, it's so easy just to start with the sausage and then make your gravy for it.

Some people just like to buy it already made and then put it in pan.

- Oh, that's so wrong.

- It's your heat.

- This is it.

You're just heating it all up together.

It's just the process.

- All right, so let me get my hands cleaned off just a little bit here.

Now, you can do this one or two ways, you can just put it in the pan exactly as it is, in the oven just now, okay?

And we've got the oven up to 425, like for most scones and biscuits and things like that.

And as this bakes, you know, it's gonna poof up and so forth.

Now, you could score these in advance, okay, so that they would break apart easily, I'm just gonna bake it as a great big biscuit thing and we'll cut it up up almost like cornbread, okay?

But as you can see, one of the things I added are little bits of sun-dried tomato.

So in addition to the tomato flavor that comes from the crush tomatoes, there's sun-dried tomatoes in there, and you want the ones that are dry, not packed in oil.

Okay, they cannot be too wet.

- But no eggs.

- No eggs, no eggs.

No.

- Okay.

- Because the richness is gonna come from the gravy.

- Right, right.

- See, so, that's where-- - [Mathew] And I have a little trick for that too.

- Okay, well, I'm gonna put this in the oven.

You keep going.

- Okay.

So, as you can see, it was really quick, thickened up to the consistency that you normally would would have a sausage gravy.

So what we have to do now is we have to let it cook out.

So it'll be the perfect amount of time while the scones are in the oven that the rest of the flour will cook out.

But what you wanna do now is turn it down to low heat, to a simmer, and this is the trick I was telling you about.

- [Dominic] Okay.

- I use a little bit of cream.

Now this is a whole cup.

I'm just gonna put in about half a cup right now.

- Oh, okay.

- I'm gonna stir it in and that's gonna give it that richness and creaminess.

- Okay.

- [Mathew] That's gonna go great with your scones.

- Okay.

- Don't really need that when you you're just doing-- - And then about how long is this gonna take to thicken up?

- About, well, it's thick, it's ready to go, but we need to cook that flour out, so it'll take about 20 minutes.

- About another 20 minutes.

Okay, awesome.

- Yeah.

So I'm just gonna go ahead and add the rest of this.

- [Dominic] I'm just gonna stand here in awe.

- [Mathew] Notice, I just, I added half at a time because sometimes it'll get a little thin.

- Oh.

- And you don't want it to get too thin.

- Right, sure, sure.

- So this'll be perfect.

- [Dominic] Excellent.

- [Mathew] Can't wait.

- [Dominic] I'm loving the smell of it already.

- [Mathew] You cook those any faster?

- No, you gotta take your time, be patient.

It's all good.

I will take issue, however, what you said about how everything's, you know, like, so, have to be so careful with bread baking.

You're thinking about pies and cakes.

Bread will forgive you.

- Bread is somewhat forgiving, but it scares a lot of people.

- Yeah, it does.

- It really does.

- Because yeast is a living organism.

- Yeah.

- That's really the problem.

- Yeah.

- And it's kinda like the magic of roux thickening things.

- Right - And they're not sure if they can make that work.

- Right.

- It's kinda like the same thing with the yeast.

I don't know if I can make that work.

You know, and once you try it.

- Yeah.

- You do it once or twice.

- You give it a shot.

It's not that hard.

- It's like the first time I made cream puffs, I was like, why did I think this was hard?

- Yeah, oh, that's super easy but very intimidating.

- Yeah, it's intimidating.

- Very intimidating.

- So no, that's the reason why, this is exactly why we do videos like this.

- [Mathew] This is perfect.

- [Dominic] All right, Mathew, it's time to combine our efforts here.

Here's our beautiful tomato basil scone.

You can see all the goodness inside of there.

There's the fresh herbs, the sun-dried tomatoes, the chunk tomatoes from the crushed tomatoes, it's all, the beautiful color, everything.

- [Mathew] It looks unbelievable.

- [Dominic] I'm ready for you to dress it, man.

- Father, one last thing you gotta do before you can serve it, is you have to taste it, see if it needs salt and pepper.

- Okay.

- I don't think we're gonna need any pepper.

We put a lot of pepper in.

(Dominic laughing) - Seems unlikely.

- [Mathew] But I am gonna taste it.

- Okay.

- Because I fear that we might need a little salt.

- [Dominic] Okay.

- Yeah, the flavors are great.

- Okay.

- You got good peppery taste in there.

But I think just adding a teaspoon of salt will help.

- Okay, okay.

- Just enhance it.

Let's stir that in.

- That's gonna depend upon, that's gonna depend on a lot of different factors too.

I mean, you might be making your be already gravy, or sausage you've already made.

- Right.

- Which may be salty or not, you know, so.

- Well, that's the biggest factor, is the pork sausage itself.

They may have a lot of salt already in it.

So let's plate this up.

- [Dominic] Oh, I can hardly wait.

- [Mathew] What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make sure that we can keep as much sausages right on top.

- Yeah, look at that.

- Just let the sauce come down the side.

- [Dominic] Oh.

- [Mathew] Then you know how much sauce you're gonna eat in each bite.

(Dominic laughing) - That is gorgeous.

Oh my gosh, okay, well just take the whole pan and just pour it over this.

- And that'll be for you and I.

- I'll just walk away.

That's for you.

- We share that.

- This is for me.

- Okay, I'll take the smaller one.

(Dominic laughing) - All right.

- Well, it looks delicious.

- Now that we've got through another one of these special meals, we'll move on to another recipe.

(upbeat music) All right, I'm creaming some butter and sugar together to make some potato donuts.

Now, I'm sure that sounds like an odd thing, but potato donuts are a revelation.

First off, I love donuts in general, I love most donuts.

Although, there are some places I don't go to because they're not good donuts, but I love making 'em at home for two reasons.

One, because it's just kind of a fun, different thing, but secondly, I can make them more modestly sized.

A lot of donuts are a little too large.

And as a diabetic, I feel bad eating them.

I think it's better to make smaller, more modest ones.

We'll talk about that in a little bit, but we start with butter and sugar.

Now, this does take an awful lot of butter or sugar and you whisk those together until they're nice and fluffy.

Okay?

And then we're gonna add some other liquid things to this.

Okay, just a little quarter cup of milk, and then a single egg.

And this is what makes things different.

Some mashed potato.

Okay, now I know that sounds really odd, but mashed potatoes in donuts function in two different ways.

First, it makes the donut more tender, but then the starch in the potato migrates to the outside as it fries and they get crisp.

So it's crisp on the outside, tender in the middle, when they're fresh out of the fryer, nothing better.

So you're really gonna enjoy this.

Ordinary mashed potato here now.

If you use them as leftovers, make sure there's not too much salt or too much, there's no pepper in there or garlic or cheese.

It won't work.

But this was just an ordinary potato, one cup worth, that I boiled and then ran through the ricer twice.

But if you're using homemade mashed potatoes that already have salt in them, you're gonna reduce the salt in this recipe.

And if you've it's already got butter and cream in it, you might reduce and not add the milk to it.

You're gonna have to kind of experiment if you're using leftovers, which I recommend you try.

Now, we've got all-purpose flour, a little bit of nutmeg, which is the traditional seasoning for donuts.

There's baking powder and just a pinch of salt.

There's just like, you know, tiny bit there.

And then we're gonna whisk that all together until it's evenly mixed.

Relatively, and then we're gonna throw it into our batter.

Now, this is gonna be a very soft dough, as are all donut doughs, okay?

Every single time you make donuts, whatever recipe you use, even yeasted donuts, it's gonna be very, very soft, okay?

Now what I like also about this recipe is that unlike a batter cake donut, which you have to have a special dispenser for, and they're kind of messy, or a yeast donut, which takes three hours to get, start to finish.

These can be done in very little time because they are a quick bread, but... they're not, they don't require that special dispenser for batter donuts.

It'll have that similar texture to a cake donut, but it will be much faster.

I can see I should have used a larger bowl.

(Dominic chuckling) This is gonna be a little bit messy.

As you can see, I'm getting kind of a soft dough, and we're gonna reach a point where we're just gonna get our hands in there.

My favorite part, as you know.

And mash it around a little bit, just till it's mixed.

Now, remember too, like any other quick bread, you don't wanna over mix because then you're gonna lose the tenderness that comes from your, from the milk and the egg and the potato and so forth.

So you don't wanna overmix this, but you are gonna have to get it all together.

And eventually, obviously, roll it out on a counter.

But because of the potato, and because it is a thick dough, we're gonna do, as we did before with the biscuits, get them out on the counter and then they're gonna kind of firm up a little bit.

So once I get the dough mixed, and let's, you can see it, I wanna get it out of the bowl so you can see what I'm doing here.

We're just gonna do a little bit of knead.

Just like that, 1, 2, 3 strokes, that's plenty, okay?

And we're gonna sit it like that.

I'm gonna put a little bit more in there.

10 minute rest, we'll be right back.

So, that's got its rest, I'm rolling it out to about a quarter of an inch.

And then we're gonna cut these out.

Now, one of the things I tell people not to do, don't cut them all out at once because sometimes then when you the donut hole will stick to the outside.

You cut a few, put them in the fryer, cut a few, put them in the fryer.

I think you'll probably get better results.

Although, I have a lovely cherrywood wooden donut cutter, I think a metal one, the old fashioned kind just like this, are usually the best.

Now, I like this smaller cutter, like I said, an old fashioned donut.

This is the size the donuts were back in the day, okay?

You look at a commercial cutter, it's this big around, okay?

It's like half, just slightly little, smaller than a bagel.

So, I like this smaller one.

Again, I don't feel quite so bad enjoying donuts when I eat like that.

Okay, now see, that's a pretty big hole in the middle.

That's because they are gonna expand.

And because... the hole in the middle makes sure that the dough will cook all the way through.

They can be doughy otherwise.

That's one of the reasons why temperature is so important.

When you heat your fryer, you wanna make sure you're at least 375, well, 375, between 350 and 375, because otherwise they'll get oily.

If it's any higher than that, they're not gonna, they're not gonna cook on the inside.

And we're just gonna lower these gently into the hot oil.

And that's kind of the easiest way to do it, is with one of these.

Although, you can just use a slotted spoon as well.

And never more than three or four at a time, because, otherwise, you're gonna lower the temperature on your oil too much and then again, they won't cook.

I'm gonna do all the donut holes at the end by themselves.

Now these are gonna need to be turned over, and you're gonna do that a lot of different ways.

A couple of bamboo skewers, chopsticks, drumsticks, if you got them, but that's the way you're gonna turn them over.

They do about 90 seconds on a side, minute to 90 seconds on a side.

And those edges are crisping up beautifully because of the starch of the potatoes.

And there's enough sugar in these that you could probably eat them by themselves.

We are going to decorate them a little bit with some frosting and some other toppings.

But I think... Now let's take a look at how that is on that side.

Oh, that's a little light, let's go a little bit farther.

As I said, about a minute to 90 seconds.

Turn that over, oh, that's a beautiful color, look at that.

There we go.

Oh, so nice.

This will wake people up too.

This will make people come down from upstairs for breakfast, okay?

This kind of smell.

If you add bacon to it, it's irresistible.

All right, so just a little bit, it takes a little less time on the second side, and then we're gonna pull those out onto... Let's see what that looks like, oh, that looks good, okay.

We're gonna pull that out to drain right here.

Have your paper towels ready, or a grocery bag or piece of cardboard or whatever, okay?

So I'm gonna continue making donuts, and then later on, I'll show you them all decorated and you'll get a chance to salivate over them yourselves.

After this, we're gonna go to a little more advanced kind of bread.

Those breads that require yeasted doughs and longer rises and some really fancy shaping techniques that are actually easy even for a beginner, but make you look like a pro.

(upbeat music) English muffin bread is really a very, very thick batter, halfway between like cake batter and dough.

It's kind of unusual and you've really gotta use a mixer.

I find it very difficult to do this by hand.

I get tired out, okay.

So what I've got in here is some yeast and some sugar, which has been developing, and then I'm gonna add some warm milk to it and get it to stir up.

And I've got the paddle on, not the dough hook.

We're not even gonna use a dough hook on this recipe.

Then we get a little bit of salt, and a tiny bit of baking soda, which is kind of part of the flavor profile and texture profile of English muffin bread.

And then, little-by-little, we're just gonna start adding all-purpose flour.

Now this is even better with bread flour.

Now, if you don't know this, bread flour has more protein in it, and that's what gives it the special bread qualities to make more loft in the dough.

And I like using bread flour for this recipe, but all-purpose will do just fine.

Just kind of adding this gradually as the paddle goes around at a relatively slow speed.

I don't want flour flying out, obviously.

I've had that happen.

That's why I like keeping one of these little scoops around because it makes it easier than trying to get a bowl to slide into the bowl of the mixer as well.

So little-by-little, we just kind of collect it all until it gets in.

Maybe that last bit I can coax in with the...

There we go.

And then we'll increase the speed a little bit.

Now, if you take a look at this now, you can see it's a very, very thick batter, okay?

And we're gonna leave this mixer on for a good five, maybe six minutes, until it all gathers onto the paddle itself in a solid mass.

Right now, it's stuck to the sides.

But when we, we'll know it's ready, when it's kind of gathered together in that, the protein has really developed that gluten matrix that will help give us loft in the dough.

Okay, so you can see how it's gathered around the paddle now.

And that's the sign that the gluten has developed itself into a really strong web.

That's gonna capture the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast to get those big holes that we like in an English muffin bread.

Now, English muffin bread will not have the giant holes as in English muffins because those take much longer to rise.

This is a little bit faster, but we'll get something similar.

This is gonna rise for an hour, then I'm gonna punch it down, divide it into its containers.

We'll show you that in a little bit.

Okay, so this dough has risen beautifully.

Look at that.

Wow.

That got some loft on it.

Okay, so that means there's plenty of gases in there, because remember, it's English muffin bread, we're hoping to get some pretty large holes in it, okay?

They won't be as much as if we make traditional muffin bread, but we're gonna do the best we can.

Now, I could put this into an ordinary loaf pan, okay?

Especially a nine by five would be perfect, okay?

But I'm gonna divide this up because I found this round crock and I thought that would make a really good crust on the outside.

Okay, so I'm gonna just kind of poke this down a little bit, and then it'll come out of the container.

One of these plastic spatula things is very handy for this sort of dough.

That's definitely, you don't have to have one, but it sure helps a lot, and I made one out of a plastic tub once, because I couldn't find the other ones that we had made.

Now, for the crock, I'm gonna put, I've already sprayed the inside, okay?

And I'm gonna put some cornmeal in here, and I'm gonna roll it around, so that I coat the outside... of the bread.

Okay, so that it will have that kind of cornmeal crunch that you associate with English muffin bread.

Let's get the excess out of there.

Now, I don't have another one of these, so I'm gonna put the remainder of the dough in these canopy molds, okay?

These are used to make kind of little sandwiches, or kind of specialty breads.

I like them to make for kids to make like little tiny French toast or a nice sandwich for a little, you know, classier luncheon.

But I like using these for this English muffin bread, and so we're gonna divide 'em up just to get a shape as something different, so about half of this.

Maybe a little less, is gonna end up in here, and there's no way to make this fancy.

You just gotta drop it in, and it's gonna be a little bit of a mess in there, and that's okay, because when it rises, that's all gonna work itself out.

Sprinkle a tiny bit of cornmeal on the top, and then we're gonna divide these out, and again, you just kind of drop them in.

Now, I have never done this before, this particular bread, in these, and I'm hoping, we're gonna find out, I'm hoping that this is the right amount of dough.

It looks about right from when I've used these molds before, but I've never made then with this recipe.

These have been sprayed as well.

Stretch that out a little bit farther.

Come on now, you got a little fat end here that doesn't want to cooperate.

Let's see if we can do it the other direction, there we go.

All right.

And you'll notice, it's only about half full, because remember, this is gonna double in volume, okay?

So you don't wanna fill it up too much.

That might be a little too much because we do like this to rise a lot, to get the big holes that are associated with English muffin bread.

So, we'll put that on there.

We'll put a cover over this.

We're gonna let them rise for another half an hour or so.

And then into the oven they'll go and you'll get to see the finished product when we use them to make eggs benedict.

While that English muffin bread is rising in its containers, I'm gonna start a batch of a soft sweet dough to make a beautiful coffee cake Valentine.

(upbeat music) So, after it rose for an hour, I punched the dough down.

Then I gave it a quick knead to expel all the larger air bubbles, and then covered it up to give it a little 10 minute rest.

After that 10 minute rest, I divided the dough in half, because this is gonna make two coffee cakes, and then rolled the dough out into a rectangle.

So, here I am with my beautifully rolled out dough.

And this is about 12 inches this way, and about 16 that way.

Okay, 12 wide is the important part, okay?

Because we wanna keep this so that it's fairly fat, okay?

And then I'm gonna take a cake and pastry filling.

Okay, now you can make this yourself.

There's some store bought brands that I think are really good, but if you're gonna use something like a pie filling, you really gotta run it through a food processor and make it a little smoother.

If you're gonna use fruit preserves, you can do that as well in any flavor.

But, again, you might want to make them a little bit smoother.

I like this to be red because this is a sweetheart coffee cake.

It'll actually be in the shape of a heart.

And we're simply going to spread this on.

We're gonna leave a little bit of a border.

Now, if you're one of those people who has a fancy-schmancy offset spatula, sure, go ahead and use it.

You're probably thinking of a reason to.

See, that makes it a lot easier.

That offset spatula is really easy to work with.

I don't quite wanna go all the way to the edge because otherwise the filling will spill out, and this is gonna be a filling that spills out a little bit anyway.

So...

Try to get much of that goodness as we can.

I like this with cherry, I like it with strawberry.

It's okay with raspberry as well.

Although, I'm not a big fan of raspberry.

Okay, now, now we're simply gonna roll this up like a jelly roll.

Just like any other jelly roll you've ever made.

Okay?

And I'm starting from the 12 inch side.

So we get lots and lots of layers, but a fairly short roll, and slightly thicker.

Pull back slightly as you roll, so that you're keeping it nice and tight.

Okay?

And there's our finished roll, and I'm gonna set it this way, but I'm gonna put it on the pan at this point, because otherwise it's gonna be a little bit harder to move.

Okay?

So this goes onto our pan.

This has already been sprayed with a little bit of pan spray.

Nice fat roll, and notice it got a little wider than 12 inches.

This is 12 inches, here to here, and it stretched out a little bit, that's common.

That's why I wanted you to make it no more than 12 to begin with because otherwise it gets too wide.

You're gonna put your seam here on top, and then take, again, your pizza cutter or a good sharp knife and split it right down the middle.

Now, it's gonna squish a little bit.

So it's gonna take a little bit of effort to make that work.

And notice I didn't cut the top and I didn't cut the bottom.

Now, this is gonna look like a bloody octopus when I turn it up, okay?

It's gonna look just absolutely horrible.

But I'm telling you, this is a beautiful thing when it's done.

It's a beautiful heart-shaped coffee cake and it looks lovely, it's wonderful for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, anniversary, birthday, any of that kind of stuff.

Sweet 16.

It's something you're gonna bring to breakfast.

It looks horrible at this point, I realize, okay?

It's like I'm doing a dissection of a marine animal or something, I don't know.

Okay?

I spread it out like that, now here's the trick.

We're gonna take this top here and I'm gonna flip it under to make the heart shape, okay?

So let's take a look at that a little bit closer.

Okay, so I'm gonna widen this out just a little bit more, so I got some place to work with, I take this and I'm gonna flip it under to form the heart.

Okay, so here we go, just like that.

(dramatic music) That was not hard, okay?

You can do that, okay?

You pull it down and this is gonna poof up and rise and be this great, big, beautiful layered thing with lots of different flavors on the inside.

So I'm just kind of forming it a little bit better into a heart, and this is going to rise for a half an hour, covered.

Now, remember, your towel going on top of it is gonna get some of this stuff on it.

Don't let that worry, please use a dry towel though, so it'll come off easily.

Rises for a half or half an hour, and then into the oven at 350.

And when it comes out, I'll show you how to dress it with a little bit of drizzle and some sliced almonds.

(upbeat music) Okay, so I have done my part.

I have produced this lovely English muffin bread.

And so now Chef Mathew, your turn to turn it into eggs benedict.

- Father, that looks great.

- Thanks.

- That's one of my favorite breads.

- Is it?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- I like anything that can be toasted.

- Absolutely.

So, at all the restaurants I've worked at, eggs benedicts have been very popular.

- Okay.

- But people are scared to make it at home.

- It's the sauce, isn't it?

- It's the sauce.

- Pretty much.

- It's the hollandaise sauce, the poaching, some people are scared of that.

So we're gonna do this really quick.

We're gonna start by poaching the eggs, and while the eggs are poaching, we're gonna make the hollandaise sauce.

- Oh, at the same time?

- At the same time.

- Oh, you are so brave.

- Same time.

So what we have here in the water is, is water that's just under a simmer.

If it's colder than that, the eggs are gonna stick to the bottom, if it's hotter than that, the eggs are gonna explode.

So we're just gonna simply drop them in.

- [Dominic] Oh, see mine, my water was always too hot then.

- Yeah.

- That's perfect.

Look at that.

- They look at explode.

So it takes a bit of time, that gives us enough time to make the hollandaise sauce.

- Okay, cool.

- If you notice, I did put them in cups.

It's easier to put it in the water rather than just-- - Slide them in, crack them in.

Yeah.

- Just the eggs.

Okay, so with the hollandaise sauce, we're gonna start with three egg yolks, and we have some water boiling here.

So we're just gonna put it in there.

It's an indirect heat, so it's gonna cook it a little bit slower.

- Okay, got it.

- While it's in there getting warm, we're gonna put a half of a lemon, just squeeze it in there, and then we're gonna mix it all up.

The acidity is gonna help with the emulsification.

- [Dominic] And "emulsification" meaning, what gives it its smooth texture.

- Right.

- Okay.

- It's incorporating the fat-- - Got it.

- Into the sauce.

- Okay, got it, got it.

- So you'll see right away, the eggs are starting to thicken up.

At that point, we just watch it really closely, we still keep the warmth on it, and keep stirring.

Now that it's thick, we're gonna start adding the fat, but you add it really slow, just a little bit at a time, and the first part-- - Okay, should I hold the bowl?

- That'd be great.

- Make it easier for you.

- That'd be great.

- All right, all right, cool.

I feel like I'm doing something.

- The first part, you just wanna start really slow.

Maybe a tablespoon in there.

- So is this clarified butter?

- Clarified butter, also called ghee.

So what you can do is melt butter at home and separate the buttermilk, which will be white, at the bottom and just take the fat off of it.

- [Dominic] Okay.

- Or you can buy ghee at the store, that's easier.

Once it gets started, guys, you can go a little bit faster and it'll start incorporating.

- That was like a teaspoon at a time at the beginning and then a little bit more.

- At the beginning.

Yeah.

- Okay, okay, cool.

- [Mathew] And you can tell, it's starting to thicken up, that's exactly what we want.

- [Dominic] On nice, look at that.

- We have some other ingredients that are gonna help thin it out to make it the right texture.

- This is like when you use roux to thicken milk, it's like a magic trick.

- It is magic.

- You know?

Yeah, yeah.

- It is magic, and I'll be honest, I haven't made this in a while, but I've probably made it 200 times, and every time I'm worried that it's gonna break.

(Dominic laughing) But it's no big deal, I mean, what do you got in it?

- Yeah.

- You got three egg yolks and some butter.

- Yeah.

- So if it breaks, big deal, start over.

- You can start over.

- Start over.

Okay, I think we have enough here.

- Okay, I'll let you go.

- And it's thick enough.

So we're gonna start adding some flavor to it.

- Okay.

- So first thing I'm gonna add-- - Keep an eye on our eggs?

- Eggs are doing good.

- They need to come out?

- Eggs are doing good?

- They're okay?

- Yep.

- Okay.

- So I put a little white pepper in there for flavor.

I'm gonna hit it with a little salt, Tabasco sauce, or any hot sauce, just a couple splashes in there.

If you want it spicier, put some more.

You can also put some cayenne pepper in here.

- Okay.

- And then just a little bit of Worcestershire sauce.

- Okay.

- You know, that's gonna give it the Umami.

- Right, right.

- That everybody talks about.

- I like the fact you're using white pepper because black, you would get the little flecks.

- You'd get the-- - Yeah, yeah.

- And it's no big deal, if you're making it for yourself at home, no big deal.

- Oh, who would care?

Yeah, right, sure.

- Okay, and then what I do, and you don't have to do this, but I put a little bit of Dijon mustard in there.

a tea spoon or so.

So that's gonna give it some good flavor, but it's also gonna help it hold, and, so over time it won't break down.

- Oh, okay.

Smart, smart, smart.

- And then, you can see that this is not the consistency we want.

So, we're gonna add a little white wine at the end and that's gonna thin it out and give it some good flavor.

And that's about the consistency.

Oh, sure enough, look at that, yeah.

That's exactly right, isn't it?

- Okay, so this is done.

It'll hold for a good hour, hour and a half now.

So if you had to do other things, you can set it aside.

Just keep it at room temperature.

- Room temp, you don't have to put it back on the heat or anything.

- No, you don't wanna do that, it'll break, and you don't wanna put it in the refrigerator because it'll get hard and you'll never get it back.

- Okay, got it.

- Okay.

- Good, good.

I am learning a lot.

- So we have a few minutes on the poached eggs.

- Okay.

- So we can wait on that, and when we come back, we can put the whole thing together.

- Excellent.

- Okay.

- All right, so English muffin bread toasted first, and then?

- All we have to do is assemble.

- Okay.

- Everything's ready to go.

- Show us how it's done.

- Now, keep in mind, this is the classic eggs benedict.

At the restaurant, we've used crab cakes, we've used salmon, use prime rib, you can use anything.

- [Dominic] But this is Canadian bacon.

- This is Canadian bacon.

- That's kind of the classic?

- [Mathew] And that's the classic, right.

- [Dominic] Okay, all right.

- [Mathew] So bacon goes on first, we toasted the English muffin bread a little bit, and then we'll put these poached eggs.

- [Dominic] We actually grilled that in a pan, which I like better, actually.

- Yeah.

Because you put the butter in there.

- Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

- So, with the poached eggs, what you're looking for is just for them to hold firm like that.

It'll still break and-- - Yeah, I was worried that it would like kind of fall apart - Yeah.

- A little bit.

- Not until you break it open.

- Okay, nice.

- All right, now the hollandaise sauce.

- [Dominic] Oh wow.

- [Mathew] And we'll just put it over the entire egg.

- [Dominic] That's the perfect consistency.

Wow.

- Yeah.

You want it-- - That's like exactly right.

- You want it just to coat everything.

- Wow.

- And then we'll top it with a little Hungarian paprika.

- Oh, nice.

Excellent.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- There you go.

- We've reached the pinnacle of breakfast, okay?

Let's lay this out along with the rest of the breakfast buffet.

- And eat.

(Dominic laughing) (upbeat music) Well, Father, you did it again.

Everything looks amazing.

- It's a beautiful display, isn't it?

- Sweetheart coffee cake.

- I love this stuff.

- Turned out awesome.

- It's got a little bit of almond drizzle over the top and then toasted almonds to go with it.

Because that almond and cherry really goes together with a lovely flavor, and I think that's a pretty display.

That's a big piece of love right there to say, "Happy birthday, happy anniversary.

"I love you, darling.

"Please forgive me."

- It's beautiful.

(Dominic laughing) Beautiful, but the smell on this, on this latish braid, the cinnamon, the apple.

That's what I'm most excited to try.

- [Dominic] And it's got a lot of flavor on the inside, and it's-- - Is that nutmeg?

- [Dominic] Yeah, a little bit of nutmeg in there too.

Yeah, it's nice.

- [Mathew] What's your favorite?

- I gotta say, I love all this stuff, 'cause I love anything that are bread groups, I'm looking forward to trying the hollandaise sauce.

- Oh yeah.

- Because I've never been successful with eggs benedict, so I wanna give it a try.

- Nobody puts mustard in their hollandaise sauce, but I love it.

I love the little kick it gives to it.

- I'm looking forward to it.

All right, so, well, thank you for joining us on our little breakfast breads and-- - I'm gonna try one of these.

- Okay.

- This one right here.

- Cheers.

- Cheers, Father.

(upbeat music) (indistinctly speaking) - Like an hors d'oeuvre.

- Why not?

It's just us.

- Like an hors d'oeuvre.

- It's just us.

I should've grabbed the bacon one.

- Well, you can eat the bacon.

You can have a second.

(upbeat music) My pleasure.

I had a great time with you.

- Blessing.

- Learned a lot.