Julekake (pronounced yoo-le-kar-ka) is a traditional Norwegian Christmas bread, with Sukat (candied citrus peel) and raisins. Julekake is flavoured with cardamom and it’s best toasted, served with gjetost (brown cheese).
Smoked mackerel and prawn kedgeree. Haddock seems too much of a northern fish to go into a dish of Indian of origin so I’ve replaced it with hot smoked mackerel. Breakfast? I don’t know but it’s an excellent lunch dish and a brilliant starter.
Festive Krantz cake with chocolate and walnut filling - quite unusual. No idea what its name means and no, it’s not the same as Kranz – creamy ‘crown’ cake. I found my recipe in ‘Baking with Passion’ by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington.
Lemon and blueberry flapjacks, easy to make and much healthier than off-the-shelf bars, naturally flavoured with lemon juice and zest, with freeze-dried blueberries.
Maple and pecan sticky buns, baked upside down, flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. It's a rich and sticky, sweet and spicy bliss, best enjoyed warm!
Marzipan buns flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. Homemade marzipan fills these soft sweet buns baked in a muffin tin. These are perfect breakfast buns!
Marzipan loaf cake based on Nigella Lawson’s recipe, using homemade marzipan. That’s a simple plain cake with marzipan in the mix but there’s nothing plain about the way it tastes.
Muffins with orange curd and chocolate ganache filling. Muffin mix is dead simple, I’ve made this mix with blueberries, raspberries, chocolate, orange zest and it works. Orange curd was organic and not too sweet – what could go wrong?
Boller - Norwegian raisin buns with cardamom flavour and a shiny glaze. What can be nicer for breakfast than a fresh from the oven – or toasted – buttered bun? Okay, a scone. Or a croissant. Or a full fry-up. Let’s leave it there.
Oatmeal and banana smoothie with chia seeds, dairy and gluten free but not free of taste. Briefly – the epitome of what I usually sneer at. Vegan. Gluten free. Dairy free.
Healthy homemade cereal bars made with oats and plenty of dried fruit and seeds. Cereal bars or granola bars? Either way they are much better than shop-bought bars.
Orange and ginger flavoured flapjack, soft and chewy, buttery and slightly sticky. Make it plain as it is, or add a handful of dried fruit or coconut flakes.
Orange flavoured ciambella with dark chocolate glaze is Italian ring-shaped breakfast cake. This one is made without butter but with olive oil; serve it for an indulgent breakfast or for dessert.
Orange and spice muffins with candied citrus peel. These smell lovely while they’re baking – orange-and-spice, Christmas-just-around-the-corner aroma.
Overnight oats with homemade yoghurt and fresh fruit, the healthiest breakfast. You don’t have to make your own yoghurt to enjoy this breakfast but it’s so amazingly easy that I challenge you to try.
Pandoro, Italian festive 'golden bread', the sweet buttery panettone's rival. Come on, Italians - just have both. I’m having both this year, although my pandoro is baked in a panettone tin - and my recipe is a somewhat hacked version of an Italian one.
Panettone - classic Italian Christmas sweet bread. Yes – it’s doable. A word of warning though: it’s a fickle, capricious beast in the truly Italian style, la donna è mobile and so is panettone.
Soufflé omelette with Parmesan is like a fluffy, savoury meringue that you can have for breakfast. Another way to have your eggs in the morning!
Plain scones with pineapple flavour, soft and light. There is no butter in the mix and pineapple juice instead of milk. It turns out you can make scones pretty much out of anything.
Pistachio morning buns, a treat for breakfast, with cardamom scent and toasted pistachio and sugar crunch. Made from enriched bread dough on tangzhong milk starter.
Plain scones, or biscuits as they are known in America. This version has cheese in it but a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and some cinnamon will make a decent sweet version.
Soft and rich brioche base with plums and cinnamon crumble topping. It means brioche is not just for breakfast. It means turning bread into cake!
Plum crumble breakfast bars, cinnamon flavoured, reduced in sugar content, are just the thing for those whose sweet tooth is awake at breakfast time.
Pompe à huile, sweet olive oil brioche traditionally served in Provence, South-East France, at Christmas. With orange flavour and a strange name (‘oil pump’), it’s one of 13 Provençal Christmas desserts.
Perfect porridge with raisins and creme fraiche. It takes minutes to cook if oats and raisins soak overnight, for healthy breakfast that will keep you going till lunch.
Pumpkin bread spiced with cinnamon and cloves, with walnuts and cranberries. I’ll say it very quickly: pumpkin bread is good. Very much the thing to do with this tin of puree knocking about the cupboard.
Breakfast quesadillas with avocado, mushrooms and bacon. Now quesadilla is my perfect toasted cheese sandwich as I’ve only just realised. It ticks all the above boxes plus one huge box on top of that: there’s no bread.
Rice flake breakfast bars lightly sweetened with maple syrup and apricot jam topping: a healthy option with lots of fibre from poha, dry rice flakes.
Salty porridge with mixed seed topping and red pepper slices. This is definitely for the brekkie-believers, but it’s porridge sans sugar so will alleviate some guilt. You know, it’s actually very tasty - and can be varied, with spinach, with mushrooms - or bacon of course.
Schiacciata con l'uva (pronounced ‘ski-a-charter’ and meaning 'squashed'), Tuscan grape focaccia is a sweet version of the flat bread, with grapes and raisins.
Semolina porridge not just for babies, with dried cranberries and a sprinkling of cinnamon, naturally sweet or with honey, it makes a nice change from oatmeal. Who said it was only fit for babies?
Sweet sourdough pull apart buns filled with jam. Impossibly sticky, and that’s before the icing. The jam puddle at the bottom of the tin. Pull apart sweet buns are a nightmare to eat but such bliss.
A delicate, fluffy omelette with fresh spinach leaves and grated Cheddar cheese is a perfect lunch or supper for one. And who cares that it doesn’t fold perfectly?
St Lucia buns, vibrant with saffron and elegantly twisted, are Swedish Christmas time bakes. Lucia Day and Lucia buns go back to the history of Lucia, an early Christian martyr.
Toasted crunchy oats with summer fruit compote, perfect for breakfast. I call it ‘fruit compote’ but it most probably is a completely wrong term technically.
Traditional panettone made on sourdough starter known as lievito madre or pasta madre in Italian. Step-by-step recipe for classic panettone with gorgeous sugar glaze.
Raspberry muffins with white chocolate chunks. Muffin is not a biscuit. It's not a cake. It's not quite breakfast fodder. It's this weird cakey thing that you grab when on the go, when hungry but its not lunchtime.
Best hot cross buns ever: wholemeal, with tons of raisins, piped crosses and delicious sticky honey glaze. There’s no better spring breakfast than a buttered hot cross bun.