Breakneck Breakfasts: Bread and Butter

So I thought that a new category about speedy breakfast dishes was called for - given that breakfast should be a big meal (especially if you lunch late) and given that most of us have scant time to devote to making breakfast before rushing off on our whirlwind days.

OK, I'll come to the real reason for the post - I have been whipping up breakfast for me and les parents these past few days (and feeling rather proud of it!), and thought some of the ideas just HAD to be shared. There.

So let me begin.

When I was in school (its best to begin in the beginning, right? :P), we had what was called a "short recess" - half an hour to down your snack packed from home (our school had no cafeteria, only a "canteen" which served greasy-but-tasty snacks like wada pao and samosa which no one in their right minds would eat every day - besides our mothers never gave us any "lunch money", opting to give us "lunch" itself) and indulge in games or gossip.

A popular recess-time snack (especially among kinds with working mothers) was bread and butter, sprinkled with sugar.In the 90's this meant standard-issue Wibs white bread, Amul butter and granulated bleached sugar. (I doubt if anyone had heard of wholewheat bread, cured butter and demerara sugar back then) Back then, I was mildly repulsed by the idea of sprinkling sugar on salted butter, but on closer inspection (aka stuffing one half-sandwich down my gullet), I found that the concoction tasted better than it sounded.

Last week, during a work-related trip to South Bombay, I picked up a half-loaf of rye bread from Le Pain Quotidien at Colaba.




At breakfast the next day, the bread called out - virtually demanded - something more than just butter. Bing! went the bell in the my head, and off I went, to give the old bread-butter-sugar combo, a glamorous makeover.

Took some butter (Amul!) out of the fridge and let it often. Mixed half of the butter with crunchy brown demerara sugar and added a generous sprinkling of powdered cinnamom. Whipped till the butter was light and fluffy.


In the other half, mixed normal granulated sugar and a few drops of orange extract (brought from the US on demand by VS) and mixed through, thoroughly.


Slathered one slice of (amazingly robust and sturdy) bread with cinnamon butter, and the other with orange butter, folded the bread over and voila! Bread-butter-sugar sandwiches, reinvented for the modern epicurean.


The taste, needless to say, was sensational. My colleagues at work loved the packed breakfast - even super-fussy non-sweets-eating Agent J. Maybe it reminded everyone subliminally of their own recess-time snacks in school. There's nothing like a haunting memory of the past, dressed up in the colours of the present!