Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Category: Breakfast

  • Pumpkin Apple Gingerbread

    I made this recipe for a demonstration at Le Cordon Bleu’s campus in Scottsdale.  An instructional video is at the bottom of this recipe.  This is a loaf-style gingerbread, with enormous depth of flavor thanks to molasses and coffee in the mix, lightened and brightened with bits of apple, earthy with pumpkin, and spicy with…

  • Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

    I’m famous for cooking with pumpkin, and I use it all year, not just during the holidays.  This is a recipe that always brings them running.  The sweet spiciness of the pumpkin bread is countered by the tartness of the cranberries. While canned pumpkin is available year-round, fresh cranberries are not.  So I buy about…

  • Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

    Who on Earth can resist a warm, yeasty, sticky, sweet cinnamon roll fresh from the oven?  ESPECIALLY if there’s cream cheese frosting to smear on top? The problem is that it takes a solid 3 hours to get cinnamon rolls finished once they are started, and who wants to get up THAT early?  The solution,…

  • 1 Hour Buttermilk English Muffins

    I used to be grossed out by packaged English muffins.  In fact, all packaged breads give me the creeps.  I just can’t buy them.  If they’re not sitting in the open air on the shelf of a bakery, and I’m confident they came out of the oven that day, I can’t bring myself to buy…