No matter how delicious a dish may be, the presentation needs a hit of color—green, red, yellow—to give it a lift.

That’s the rationale for the ubiquitous sprig of parsley and the red berry and/or mint leaf atop rice pudding and vanilla ice cream.

Much of the food we eat is beige or otherwise earth-toned. So do a color check on everything you serve.

If it’s a sweetened food—from cereal to apple pie—add some color with raspberries or sliced strawberries, or fan a large strawberry to top a piece of pie or pound cake.

RED GARNISHES ROCK

For savory dishes, use cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes or diced red bell pepper. Sliced red jalapeño works if you like the heat. All can be marinated first, in a vinaigrette or flavored olive oil. In essence, the garnish becomes a mini salad.

If you buy sundried tomatoes, look for a bright red color and use them up relatively quickly. They oxidize to a blackish red over time.

Other red garnish options: radish slices (or the retro radish rose) or a sprinkling of red spice (paprika, chili flakes, pink peppercorns) along the rim of the plate.

Shredded red cabbage, with or without a vinaigrette, and shredded radicchio leaves are other options. If you’re near a good farmers market, look for amaranth and red chard.

 
MORE GARNISH IDEAS

There are dozens and dozens of everyday ingredients that can be used to garnish. Check out our article, Garnish Glamour.

And beyond nutrition, color is another reason to add brightly colored vegetables to your meals.

May 9th is National Butterscotch Brownie Day, also called a blonde brownie or blondie. Blondies have their own holiday: January 22nd.

The difference between a brownie and a butterscotch brownie / blondie is a yellow (blonde) batter: flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and vanilla. A brownie is made from a chocolate brownie batter, which adds cocoa powder or melted chocolate.

A butterscotch brownie (a.k.a. blondie) has a butterscotch flavor, from the brown sugar. Some might call it a caramel flavor.

There can be a slight difference between butterscotch brownies and blondies. Blondies typically include chocolate chips and nuts. Butterscotch brownies add butterscotch chips (chocolate chips and nuts are an option). Some recipes use toffee bits instead of butterscotch chips.

The recipe and history of butterscotch brownies follow.

Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The year’s 44 cookie holidays.

> The 10 different styles of cookies (blondies and brownies are bar cookies).

> The different types of cookies: a photo glossary.

> The history of brownies.

> The history of cookies.
 
 
BUTTERSCOTCH BROWNIES HISTORY

According to Food Timeline, blonde brownies predate the chocolate version by about 10 years.

Around 1896, a molasses-flavored bar cookie (no chocolate, cocoa or chocolate chips) called a brownie appeared. The name honored the elfin characters featured in popular books, stories, cartoons and verses of the time by Palmer Cox (the Eastman Kodak Brownie camera was also named after these elves).

After the later introduction and popularity of chocolate brownies, the bar became known as a butterscotch brownie (history of the brownie).

The name “Blondie” surfaces in the 1980s. It was not named for Dagwood Bumstead’s wife.
 
 
RECIPE: CHEWY, CHUNKY BUTTERSCOTCH BROWNIES

In this recipe, cookbook author Dorie Greenspan uses toffee bits instead of butterscotch chips. She also adds some coconut, which you can keep or omit.

The recipe is from Dorie’s book, Baking: From My Home To Yours. It makes you want to get an invitation to Dorie’s home, ASAP.

Ingredients

 
*You can chop up any toffee you have on hand.
 
Preparation

1. CENTER a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet. Prepare a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer and a large bowl.

2. WHISK together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. BEAT the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated.

4. ADD the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition; then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter.

5. STIR in the chips, nuts and coconut, using a rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best you can.

6. BAKE for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown color.

7. TRANSFER the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack right side up and cool the blondies to room temperature. Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2-1/4 x 1-1/2 inches.
 
 
FOOD 101: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUTTERSCOTCH & TOFFEE

Both start with sugar, butter and water. Then, it’s a question of the heat and any added ingredients.

Here’s the scoop.

[1] A classic butterscotch brownie / blondie. The recipe is below (photo © Dorie Greenspan | Lovin In The Oven).

[2] We prefer ours with lots of chocolate chips (photo © King Arthur Flour).

[3] Yes, please: chocolate chips (photo © Bella Baker).

[4] Want nuts? We think that pecans taste best in a butterscotch brownie / blondie (photo © American Pecans).

[5] The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home To Yours (photo courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

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You can celebrate May 9th, National Moscato Day, with a glass of Moscato: the slightly sweet white wine pairs well wherever an Alsatian Gewürtztraminer or Riesling would be at home (see the food pairings below).

But for National Moscato Day, we present two cocktail recipes, courtesy of Gallo Family Vineyards, one of our favorite Moscato makers.

MOSCATO DAY CELEBRATION PUNCH

Serves 6-8 people.

Ingredients

Try a Moscato-Tequila punch. Photo courtesy Gallo.

Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a punch bowl or large pitcher filled with ice.

2. GARNISH and serve.

MOSCATO GIMLET

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a coupe glass.

2. GARNISH with lime wedge and serve.

ABOUT MOSCATO

Moscato is a lighter-style white wine, lower in alcohol (5%-8% ABV, about half the alcohol of other wines). It is popular with brunch, dessert or as an apéritif. It is grown around the world. The Italian bottlings, from Italy’s Piedmont region, are called Moscato d’Asti: named after the grape, Moscato, and the Italian town of Asti, the center of production. Asti Spumante is sparkling Moscato.

Straw-colored Moscato is known for its fruit (often peaches and tangerines, depending on region), its floral fragrance fragrance and its subtle sweetness.

PAIRING MOSCATO WITH FOOD

Don’t store Moscato: It’s meant to be drunk fresh and vibrant in the year it is vinified. Serve it with:

 
SEE ALL THE AMERICAN FOOD HOLIDAYS.

People regularly top plain Greek yogurt with fruit, granola and other sweet ingredients to create yogurt sundaes or parfaits.

But what about savory toppings?

When Pinkberry recently added conventional Greek yogurt to its frozen yogurt shops, among the fruit flavors were two savory yogurt sundaes:

 
We liked them, and they inspired us to use vegetables and other savory toppings on our plain Greek yogurt, as well as vegetable-fruit mixes. An ingredients template follows so you can do the same.

Pinkberry’s Tomato-Basil Yogurt Sundae. Photo courtesy Pinkberry.

Vegetables

 
Fruits

 
Sauces

Toppings

 
SWEET YOGURT SUNDAES

We’d be remiss if we didn’t supply the recipes to Pinkberry’s sweet yogurt sundaes with Greek yogurt:

 
*Giardinera is a mixture of pickled vegetables, Italian in origin, that can include carrots, cauliflower, celery, onions, red bell pepper and zucchini, carrots and cauliflower, pickled vegetables in red- or white-wine vinegar. It is typically eaten as an antipasto, and is also delicious on sandwiches.

Since it was invented in the 1860s, Eggs Benedict has been a posh addition to the breakfast-lunch-brunch menu. It was created by the chef at a tony New York restaurant, Delmonico’s, for a wealthy customer, Mrs. LeGrand Benedict (here’s the history of Eggs Benedict).

The original recipe topped two toasted English muffin halves with round-cut slices of ham, poached eggs; and Hollandaise sauce. Over the years, the more conveniently-shaped Canadian bacon replaced the trimmed ham.

The ham substitutions continued, gaining momentum among creative chefs in modern times. Why not create your own reinvention of Eggs Benedict for Mother’s Day or other special occasion? Select your options from the ingredients that follow.

Below:

> Eggs Benedict ingredient substitutions.

> The history of brunch.

Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The history of Eggs Benedict.

> 15 Eggs Benedict recipe variations.

> The different types of eggs: a photo glossary.

> The year’s 10 egg holidays.
 
 
EGGS BENEDICT INGREDIENT SUBSTITUTES

Instead Of The English Muffin

 
Note: You need a type of bread that will soak up the egg yolk. Pita, for example, doesn’t work here. Steer clear of regular pancakes and waffles. They take what should be an elegant dish to McGriddles territory.

Instead Of The Canadian Bacon Or Ham

 
What about everyday bacon strips? Eggs Benedict should be a special dish. By all means, serve poached eggs with bacon—just not on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce.

Similarly, fried eggs, sausage and gravy should remain their fine casual selves, and not be adapted into a Benedict-style variation.
 
Instead Of The Hollandaise Sauce Substitute

 
Consider how you can flavor a basic béchamel to match the ham substitute. For example, add dill to the sauce for lobster, horseradish and lemon zest for crab cakes.
 
Garnish Options

Chives are the most common garnish, but here’s a more inclusive list:

 
 
THE HISTORY OF BRUNCH

The term, a combination of breakfast and lunch, was coined in the U.K. in 1895 to describe “a Sunday meal for Saturday-night carousers.” This first reference in print was an article in Hunter’s Weekly (source).

Brunch eliminated the need to rise early for breakfast. Instead of the conventional post-church early Sunday dinner, the new meal, served around noon, started with a course of toast, marmalade, tea. coffee and other breakfast foods before moving on to some heartier fare.

And the rest is delicious history.

[1] Classic Eggs Benedict: poached egg and Canadian bacon on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce. (photo © American Egg Board).

[2] Crabcake Eggs Benedict (photo © Ocean Prime | NYC).

[3] Hash Brown Eggs Benedict: all vegetarian and gluten-free, with a base of hash-brown potatoes instead of the English muffin or other bread. Here’s the recipe (photo © Idaho Potato Council).

[4] Portabella Eggs Benedict: low carb, with a mushroom base. The recipe is below (photo © Mushroom Council).

[5] Lobster Eggs Benedict (photo © Raclette | NYC).

 

[6] Eggs Benedict on polenta. Here’s the recipe (photo © Taste Of Home).
 

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