How to Making Eggs Benedict at Home

Master the brunch classic with some pro tips from Brennan's head chef Slade Rushing.

You might be sloppy when you eat it, but the brunch standard Eggs Benedict should be anything but. The dish is a careful construction of textures and calibrated flavors—gooey and crispy, with rich yolk with lemony Hollandaise, and plain muffin bolstered by salty cured pork. It’s an exercise in complete balance, making it the perfect foil for those 9 a.m. Bloody Marys.

And that’s why chefs in the Big Easy—where starting early is a way of life—have mastered the details of the dish, even though the open-faced sandwich supposedly originated in New York City. Such is the case for chef Slade Rushing, who earned his job at Brennan’s by demo-ing Benedict from scratch (and continues to get plenty of practice by serving 500 brunches on weekends). Each plate has just four perfect components: two halves of a homemade English muffin, home-cured Canadian bacon, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce.

“When it’s done right,” says Rushing, “You’re a believer.”

We’re talking about some very specific beliefs, however, because Eggs Benedict is a very specific dish. Once you start substituting baguette for English muffins, salmon for ham, or low-fat Hollandaise for the crazy rich stuff, you’ve backed yourself out of Benedict land and into regular old brunch territory. The only acceptable modification, according to Rushing, is to mess with the sauce. Mother Hollandaise—basically, hot mayo—has many offspring sauces that vary in flavor enough to give the dish new life—but not so much as to change its essence. Or you can throw caution to the wind and use your newfound poaching, griddling, and sauce-making expertise to mess with the classic all you want. Just don’t tell Chef Rushing.

1. The English muffin

At Brennan’s, Rushing makes his own English muffins. You can too if you have the time—it’s really not as difficult as you think—and the results speak for themselves. Otherwise, pick up your favorite muffin, the one with the soft interior and the chewy exterior, and, if you can find it, a tiny taste of tang left from the yeast dough’s rise. Most of all, “you gotta have the right number of holes in there,” says Rushing. Copious nooks and crannies will soak up the butter, egg yolk, and hollandaise to come. Don’t settle for muffins with lesser holes.

2. Toasting the Muffin

Skip the toaster, says Rushing. Melt butter on the griddle—in your case, probably a frying pan—and make the pat generous. Then split your muffin and toast it face down in the fat, pressing slightly with a spatula to be sure the surface crisps to a buttery, golden finish. That’s the right toasting for Eggs Benedict.

3. Picking Your Pork

Don’t leave the ham cold. After you’ve griddled your English muffin, introduce your meat to the same hot pan. The idea isn’t to give the slice crazy crisp; it’s just to warm the middle and make the edges brown. Because heating the pork causes evaporation, you’ll up the saltiness factor by doing this. That’s fine if you’ve started with thick-cut Southern ham, but if you’re working with a saltier variety in the first place, consider heating the slices for a moment in the microwave instead—a technique that’ll warm them without increasing the salinity beyond what your Benedict needs.

5. Poaching Eggs

A poached egg is a beautiful thing—a silky white envelope encasing a warmed yolk that oozes out at the slightest touch. You’ll need practice and patience to reach this ideal. But even if your whites ribbon off and set a little unevenly, you’ll still get the right effect in the final Benedict (remember, opaque Hollandaise can cover up anything awkward).

Beyond practice, there are a couple of poaching tricks. First, you want your water just barely simmering; keep adjusting the heat until you have a few bubbles surfacing, not a violent tidal wave. Second, crack the egg into a small prep bowl, then lower it gently into the water instead of cracking the egg right in. Third, add vinegar to help the egg sink down in the pot, keep its shape, and develop flavor. For 2 quarts of simmering water, Rushing uses 3 tablespoons of cider vinegar. Julia Child had another hack: she pricked her eggshells with a pin and boiled her eggs for 10 seconds before cooling, cracking, and poaching them as normal, according to TheKitchn. This eliminates the wispy white problem from the very start.

Ultimately, poaching eggs is also about being comfortable with failure. Sometimes your egg, like your hollandaise, isn’t going to come out right, and that’s okay. You’ll make another. There’s only one unforgivable error. “Poaching the eggs over-hard doesn’t do justice to the dish,” warns Rushing. “Then it’s an Egg McMuffin.” Pull your eggs from the water with a slotted spoon as soon as the whites are fully set. Drain on a paper towel until you’re ready to assemble.

6. The Hollandaise

Hollandaise is important. Just ask Thomas Keller, whose essay “The Importance of Hollandaise,” connects the sauce to the magic and mystery of cooking, and the feeling of coming into his own as a chef. Hollandaise is not so intimidating if you follow directions to the letter, but you won’t feel mastery of until you make it every day—like Rushing does. It’s “an advanced home cook-type sauce,” says Rushing.

To make the sauce, you incorporate a lot of melted, clarified butter into egg yolks, creating an emulsion. This is easier to do if there’s some moisture in the mix—water for chemistry, lemon and white wine vinegar for taste. Also note that Hollandaise uses clarified butter, meaning you have to scoop the white milk solids off the top of the melted butter and leave any that have sunk to the bottom in the pan. Here’s how to make Hollandaise the way you’d do in cooking school: melt 10 ounces or 2 ½ sticks of butter in a pan. Scrape off most of the milk solids—don’t worry if you don’t get them all, they’ll actually make emulsifying easier. Then, combine 2 tablespoons of cider or white wine vinegar with some peppercorns and chopped shallot in a small pan on the stove and reduce to less than half. Strain out the solids and put the vinegar into a heat-safe bowl. Add 4 teaspoons of water and 3 egg yolks. Stir in ½ teaspoon salt. Set this bowl over a pot of barely simmering water to improvise a double boiler. Whisk constantly while the bowl is on the heat; the yolks will quickly puff up, becoming voluminous and light-colored. Remove from the heat when they’ve doubled in size. Then drizzle in the tiniest bit of butter, whisking hard. Make sure this first bit gets emulsified, then slowly drizzle in the rest of the butter, whisking and watching the sauce thicken. If it breaks—the liquids and solids separate—then add a tiny bit of water or some lemon juice until it comes back together. When all the butter’s in there, add up to 2 teaspoons of lemon juice to get the sauce tangy enough to balance the richness—not just of the butter, but also of the egg yolk and ham it’ll soon be topping.

Sound like too much work? Try blender Hollandaise. One more tip: don’t go easy on the butter. “It’s hard to make Hollandaise fat free,” says Rushing. Hollandaise is rich, even though it tastes light. That’s why it’s delicious.

7. Hollandaise’s Children

There aren’t too many tweaks you can make and have your Benedict retain its dignity, but one outlet for creativity lies in Hollandaise’s offspring. Sauce Choron, one of the child sauces, has tomato puree or sauce whisked in at the end, while fragrant Béarnaise gets an upgrade from tons of chopped tarragon. Eggs Hussarde, invented at Brennan’s, “is the only true derivative,” according to Rushing. In Hussarde, you pour on a reduced red wine sauce called marchand de vin in addition to the Hollandaise.

8. Is This a Benedict?

Brunch menu authors have taken a lot of liberties with Eggs Benedict, meaning they’re no longer making the dish with its balanced flavors and textures, according to Rushing. “I’m a purist, a classicist,” he maintains. And yet, here are some close relatives that are delicious and useful. Make a vegetarian spinoff by skipping the ham and piling on something salty instead: greens and sun-dried tomatoes are my pick; at Brennan’s, there’s crispy artichokes and creamed spinach (called Eggs Sardou); and simplest of all is Eggs Florentine, made with spinach instead of pork. For a Maryland version, heap on a crab cake instead of the ham, then sprinkle on Old Bay. A smoked salmon variation goes by Eggs Atlantic or Eggs Hemingway; like the ham, the salmon contributes smokiness and salt. Try other breads, other meats, and other sauce seasonings as you like, just don’t expect to one-up Eggs Benedict’s perfection.

9. Assembly & Make Ahead

Everything happens fast when you make Eggs Benedict, so you want to be on your game. You might start cautiously by making them for your own personal Big Easy brunch before you invite the masses over. Prep by splitting the muffins and cutting the ham to size. Hollandaise doesn’t hold forever, but you can put it together a few hours ahead of time and store it in a tightly covered thermos. If you need to reheat Hollandaise, do so in a bowl over a double boiler, very gently. Get the egg poaching liquid simmering while you crisp the muffins and ham, then poach the eggs last of all—though some believe you can reheat cooled-down poached eggs by submerging them again in the poaching liquid for about 30 seconds. To assemble, top each muffin half with ham, egg, then Hollandaise. Garnish with an sprig of parsley, tarragon, or dill.

Note the genius of the Benedict’s open-faced assembly. It’s set up to ensure that every bite is a perfect one, with some of each of the four elements available to fork into your mouth together. And that’s intentional: “You need things to play off each other,” says Rushing. “It’s like a roller-coaster ride.” The yolk bursts and balances out the lemony Hollandaise. Both soak into the muffin’s nooks. The muffin’s crispy edges crunch. And the glorious ham seasons every last bite.

How to Making Cinnamon Buns at Home

We tapped three baking pros to help you achieve pastry greatness—no trip to the mall necessary.

If you’ve ever had to kill time during a flight layover, then you’ve most likely followed your nose to the nearest Cinnamon outpost. We wouldn’t blame you. The lure of rich, aromatic rolls is practically irresistible: warm, cinnamon-streaked pastries drizzled with runny frosting that seeps into their folds. It’s the full package.

“When you take them out of the oven, they’re the most fragrant of the breakfast desserts,” says Matt Lewis of the Brooklyn bake shop Baked, a sentiment also echoed by Susan Reid, another pastry connoisseur at King Arthur Flour. “Warm cinnamon is the most addictive thing I can think of,” she says.

Historically speaking, our aromatic giant cinnamon buns are the all-American descendants of a European sweet yeast-bread tradition that’s often traced to Scandinavia in particular, where the buns come in too many sizes, shapes, and flavours to count. That sounds potentially complicated—multiple rises, elaborate rolling instructions, frosting consistency—but the art of making rolls is friendlier to home cooks than may appear

“Because you’re eating them warm right out of the oven, they’re fairly forgiving,” says Reid.

Based on her credentials, we’re apt to believe her. That’s why we tapped Reid, along with Lewis and Joanne Chang—whose Boston bakery, Flour, makes buns so sticky that they’re fittingly dubbed “sticky sticky buns”—for a master class on how to get achieve cinnamon-bun glory outside of an airline terminal or mall.

Here is the complete guide to making cinnamon buns at home.

1. The Dough

Yeasted dough enriched with butter, eggs, and milk gives these pastries their stretchy, chewy texture. You can turn out a brioche, which is what Chang relies on to make her rolls at Flour. That sounds sophisticated, but “it’s a straightforward dough to make at home if you have a mixer,” she says. “Use cold butter and cold water so that the friction caused by the mixing doesn’t warm up the dough too much.” Or, make a simple dough with milk and melted butter, You can use some buttermilk instead of the milk for an extra hint of tanginess.

Once you’ve mixed the dough together, you’ll want to knead. Go for it—push and pull it against the counter for five or ten minutes, until the dough feels smooth and stretchy. There’s a lot of talk about not overworking dough, and that’s basically true—you can wind up with a roll that’s tough if you knead forever. Better to jump in than to shy away though. Always remember, buns are forgiving. Lewis says: “Just don’t be too scared of it.”

2. Rising & Timing

The sweet yeasted dough needs time to rise twice. The first rest happens right after you make it. That’ll take around an hour or two. Many recipes say to let the dough double in size, but watching for an inflated, puffy look is actually the better clue. After that rise, you fill, roll, and cut the buns.

Then there’s the second rise, known as the “proof,” which lasts another hour or so. Proofing is instrumental in getting the right light and fluffy texture, says Chang, so leave time for that. “An over-proofed bun will bake off almost tight in texture. But on the flip side, an under-proofed bun will be hard and chewy and not appetizing.” A bun that’s done proofing will feel soft and pillowy and will wiggle “like a water balloon” when you poke, she says.

This schedule means that if you want to eat cinnamon buns at, say, 10am, you’ll have to be kneading dough at 5am—fine for a professional baker, but untenable for a normal human. Here’s how to hack the timeline: do everything from dough through assembly the night before, but put on the brakes before you preheat the oven. Then, let the buns proof at room temperature for about half the time specified in the recipe before transferring them to the fridge to slow the proofing overnight. In the morning, put them on the counter for 30 to 45 minutes, while the oven preheats, so that they come back up to room temperature before they go in. You can also freeze the assembled buns for up to a month, letting them come to room temperature before baking.

3. Filling

Traditional filling is nothing more than butter, swiped across rolled-out dough, and cinnamon, brown sugar, and salt, sprinkled on top. You can vary the amount of cinnamon, from as little as a teaspoon too much as a tablespoon. Since the filling’s so good, there’s an easy temptation to add extra butter and sugar, but Reid says to rein in that impulse. “Butter has a tendency to run right out,” she says. That’s counterproductive. If you’re serious and science-minded, she does have some tricks for increasing filling bulk: you can brush the dough with milk instead of butter, then use cinnamon, sugar, and flour in the filling (the flour holds the filling in). Another option is to buy a product called modified food starch, which is cornstarch treated to absorb the liquid from the butter and sugar as it bakes, and add that to the cinnamon, sugar, and butter.

For 12 buns, with a basic cinnamon-sugar filling, you’ll want to spread on 2 tablespoons of melted or very soft butter, followed by a sprinkle of mixed-together brown sugar (1/4 cup), white sugar (2 tablespoons), ground cinnamon (1 to 3 teaspoons), a big pinch of salt, and a few tablespoons of melted butter. You can also play around with ground coconut flakes, a few raisins, or chopped nuts. Keep the quantities small, so the filling doesn’t overwhelm the buns.

4. Rolling

When the dough has risen and is nice and puffy, turn it out onto the counter and push it into a rectangle. You shouldn’t have to flour the surface, but if the dough sticks, flour only lightly. Then, use a rolling pin to persuade the dough into a larger rectangle—about 12 by 18 inches. This shouldn’t take too many strokes, as the dough is pretty pliable. Know that the longer you play around, the more finicky it will become, so try to get it right the first time. If you tear the dough, the imperfection will disappear when you roll.

Once the dough is in a rectangle, brush the surface with the butter and sprinkle evenly with the filling, being devout about reaching all the way to the edges. “When you put your filling on, people sometimes say ‘leave a half inch clear all around,’” says Reid. “All you’re doing is screwing the end cinnamon roll. Why would you do that?” Instead, leave a little room on one long edge, but diligently apply elsewhere. Finally, with the long edge closest to you, roll the rectangle up into a log. “If you want the ends to be pointy, roll tight. If you want flat tops, don’t press on it as you roll it,” says Reid, who notes that flat tops hold more icing.

5. Cutting

No matter how carefully you saw back and forth with a sharp knife, your round log will probably turn into misshapen oval rolls when you cut. But Reid has a solution: “Since tender dough tends to squish when you cut with a knife, we use dental floss to get that perfect look.” Take your log of dough and mark off segments 1 ½-inches thick. Then nudge the (unflavored) floss beneath the log, and bring both ends to the top. Pull them together to cinch off a perfect round. Repeat until all buns are cut.

6. Goo

It’s easy to turn your cinnamon bun into a sticky bun by coating your baking pan with goo and nuts. Though it cooks beneath the dough, when you turn the buns out, that goo will become the topping. The best goo contains butter, sugar, cream, and honey. Honey, an inverted sugar, helps keep the goo gooey, explains Reid; you can substitute maple syrup, sorghum, boiled-down apple cider, or corn syrup, but don’t just use more sugar. To make the goo, melt together ½ cup of butter, ¾ cup dark brown sugar, ¾ cup heavy cream, 1/3 cup of honey, and a big pinch of salt. Let that come to a boil, then simmer for a few minutes, until it darkens (in a small pot, it’ll want to bubble over, so watch out). Pour the goo into the baking sheet before you place the buns.

7. Nuts

“We make sure to use a lot of nuts when baking them so that the sweetness is offset a bit,” says Chang. Scatter at least 1½ cups of chopped pecans, toasted for extra flavor, on top of the goo. You can change up the classic by substituting your favorite nut, from macadamia to peanut.

8. Baking

Cinnamon buns have a few different textures, thanks to how they’re baked. The bottoms get brined in melted butter and cinnamon-y sugar, the outsides become brown and crusty—except in those lighter spots where they’re touching other buns—and the inner parts of the roll are tender and barely baked. Step one (done before proofing) is to arrange the buns in a parchment paper-lined, buttered pan for plain buns, or on top of goo and nuts for sticky buns. Use a 9 by 13-inch pan to make 12 buns. Whatever size you use, make sure all buns are touching. Step two is to bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes, until the buns have inflated a little. When done, “they should be a beautiful golden brown on top,” says Chang. Once out of the oven, let the buns cool for 5 minutes, then ice your cinnamon buns. If you’ve made sticky buns, invert the pan over a serving tray, scooping all the extra goo out on top.

9. Icing

There is no denying the aesthetic appeal of the icing on a bun, its white cap thin enough to show off the swirls underneath, and its drips covering the sides. Many bakers like a tangy cream-cheese based glaze, instead of a purely saccharine frosting made from just milk and powdered sugar. Whatever the recipe, don’t rely on the icing to make your bun good. “The cinnamon bun has to stand on its own,” says Lewis, who either pipes on thin lines or spreads on a schmear. “A little frosting makes it great; too much frosting makes it gross.” Baked’s proportion for the glaze is 2 ounces of softened cream cheese, 3 tablespoons of buttermilk, and 1 1/4 cups of sifted powdered sugar, beaten until smooth. Let the buns cool only slightly before you apply the icing: the goal is to have some melt into the bun’s swirls.

10. Leftovers

Like croissants and doughnuts, cinnamon buns just don’t last long, quickly losing their fluffiness, and of course, their perfume. “They deteriorate every hour,” says Lewis. “The texture becomes kind of dry and gummy.” There’s not too much evidence that our bakers wind up with excess stock, but when the bun case isn’t empty by the end of the day, they might repurpose them in a way that makes the most of the staleness. “We chop them up, soak in a rich creamy custard and bake it as sticky bun bread pudding,” says Chang. “We serve this with a generous drizzle of caramel sauce and pecans.” You could also slice buns crosswise and make French toast.

Spicy Tomato Sushi Rolls

Butternut squash and savory seasoned tomatoes make a succulent filling for these vegan sushi rolls. You can also make these into on-the-go wraps by rolling them up like a burrito to eat out of hand.

PREP-TIME: 1 HOUR

READY IN: 1 HOUR

MAKES 4 ROLLS

INGREDIENTS

• 1½ cups low-sodium vegetable broth

• ¾ cup dry short grain brown rice

• 1½ cups frozen riced butternut squash

• 4 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped (2 cups)

• 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium tamari

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

• 1 tablespoon sriracha sauce

• 2 teaspoons tahini

• 2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar

• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

• 4 8-inch toasted nori sheets

• ½ of a medium avocado, peeled and sliced

• 1 Persian cucumber, seeded and cut lengthwise into ¼-inch strips (5½ oz.)

• 2 carrots, coarsely shredded (1 cup)

• 4 scallions (green onions), trimmed to 6 inches and cut lengthwise into strips

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a small saucepan bring broth to boiling. Add rice; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 40 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Stir in frozen riced butternut squash. Let stand 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, for spicy tomatoes, in a bowl stir together the next five ingredients (through tahini).

3. Stir rice vinegar and maple syrup into brown rice mixture.

4. Lay a sushi mat on a cutting board; place a nori sheet lengthwise on mat. With damp fingers, spread one-fourth of the rice mixture over bottom two-thirds of the nori, leaving a ¼-inch border on side edges. Arrange one fourth of the avocado, cucumber, carrots, tomato mixture, and scallions along center of rice layer. Roll up nori toward the unfilled edge, using sushi mat to lift and tightly roll. Brush unfilled edge with water and press over top of roll. Repeat with remaining ingredients, making four rolls total. Slice each roll into 1-inch slices to serve.