Roll with it

Breakfast on the go. That’s the idea behind the bruffin. Buttery and flaky brioche dough rolled with any combination of savory ingredients — bacon and cheddar, in this case, or what’s called a “British” — and baked in the shape of a muffin. BRioche + mUFFIN, get it? Not the most elegantly named pastry (as if cronut is, hah!), but it comes in handy for the man and woman on the move in the city that never sleeps. For the moment, it’s at least New York’s hippest bakery item.

Doesn’t it remind you of ensaymada, though? Can’t say I blame you there. Brush that thing with butter or margarine, sprinkle sugar and grated Edam cheese on top, and P-noy’s your uncle. Hey, maybe we’ve been ahead of the trend all along! Too bad the rest of the civilized world has yet to catch up on sweet monggo and halayang ube. Those flavors would feel right at home in a bruffin.

The catch? There are several, the most obvious of which is that that’s not quite how bruffin looks like. For another, I haven’t actually tasted the real thing. But the recipe was from someone who has. I wasn’t even aware this beast existed until a friend requested it, and now my mother wants me to bake another batch of “that bread.”

“They’re called bruffins.”

“Whatever.”

But she’ll have to wait until the next rainy day. It’s too damn hot right now to be baking (especially brioche — you do not want all that butter melting prematurely; I sweat just thinking about it). If it’s savory bread you really fancy, head over to a 7-11 and grab some stuffed pandesal. I don’t see how anything can beat the tuna cheese pimiento. (Now there’s an idea.)

Some notes. The recipe does not tell you what to expect when mixing the dough. It will be quite wet. For brioche, this is apparently what you should aim for. Be prepared to give it a hand every now and then, especially when incorporating the butter. Scrape and fold, scrape and fold.

Oh, and a little more sugar, please — I’m Filipino.

More, more, more. You can never have enough savory in bread. Put in as much as your dough can accommodate; when the thing puffs up, you will realize you haven’t really put that much, after all (I used half a kilo of bacon for twelve bruffins, and that was nowhere near enough). Press the savory bits into the dough or they will fall off as you fold.

Did I say that the bread would puff up? Scratch that. They will balloon (too much yeast in mine, perhaps?). So will your waistline (or blood sugar level) if you eat too much of these calorie-laden treats. The bruffin’s creators did not have couch potatoes like me (or, presumably, you) in mind when they set out to conquer the world.

Or maybe they did. Maybe this world will end, not in flames, but from an excess of unburned fat. Sometime after breakfast, I should say.