Brunch is an absolute treasure to me. I don’t know when it was invented or where… At some point someone decided to create this time honored tradition of champagne, eggs and something decadent. Long live this glorious nod towards gluttony, excess and day drinking.

Pink champagne is fun, it matches the strawberries and is much more preferred in this house than a mimosa (I can’t do all that orange juice; too acidic). A yummy slightly spicy Bloody Mary would have been perfect as well. Everyone loves fresh fruit and once stuffed in warm flaky puff pastry, supported with a blend of creamy ricotta and goat cheese (with some basil), it’s a perfect mouthful (after three bites). I have a trick to the best scrambled eggs that if you’d like to try, I’ll tell you about below.

You will need:

• Eggs (as many as you think you’ll need)
• Salt and pepper
• Dried basil
• Dried or fresh dill
• Ricotta
• Goat cheese
• Avocado
• Spinach leaves
• Puff pastry
• Fresh fruit
• Cream cheese
• Champagne

When you buy puff pastry, it will come with two separate sheets wrapped individually. I only needed to unwrap one and leave out to defrost. Place the other package back in the freezer. Meanwhile, get out a colander and rinse your fruit and then leave out to dry. You can sometimes find goat cheese with basil already mixed in. Otherwise, take out the cheese and place it in a bowl and mix in some dried basil. Stir with some ricotta. Taste it as you go until it’s to your liking.

While your berries continue to dry, crack the eggs you plan to eat in a bowl and whisk furiously. I find that it adds a lot of fluff later if you can get some air into them at this point. Preheat your sauté pan on medium and when it’s heated, place your eggs in the pan and start to immediately start moving them around the pan with either a spatula or wooden spoon. You want to make sure they don’t burn on the bottom. Right when the majority of the eggs harden a bit, turn the heat completely off. At this point, you’ll want to add something that will bring the temperature down even more. I usually add cream cheese but, you can add the butter instead if you don’t like cream cheese. Move that around in the eggs and the residual heat from the pan will continue to cook the eggs while the cool butter or cream cheese keeps them from going dry. Fold in some fresh spinach leaves. Slice your avocado and place on top after adding your salt, pepper and dill.

Avocado as you know, has a tendency to “turn” so, save the adding of the avocado for as late as you can. You can turn the stove on low to keep the eggs warm. I used a silver lidded vegetable dish so, I was able to plate and place something on top to keep the eggs from going cold.

When your puff pastry is defrosted, take it out, roll it a bit thinner and cut into similar squares. Butter your muffin tin (or spray with a non-stick cooking spray).

After you place each square in your muffin tin, stab over and over and over with little fork holes in the bottom of each pastry so that it doesn’t puff up too much in the oven. Mine did, and it’s okay if your pastry does as well. This doesn’t have to be perfect. I put a bit of egg wash on each one to have them brown just a bit. Bake it according to the directions on the back of the box. Prep your berries in the meantime, removing the tops of the strawberries and slicing them into quarters or halves, for example. Once they’ve been removed, fill with your ricotta and basil goat cheese mixture and then top with the berries. Serve immediately if you’d like them to stay warm (unless you’re serving them covered, in which case they will stay warm for a while).

The puff pastry is very flaky and warm… and once you cut into them with the berries, you’ll get a mouthful of tangy cheese and sweet berries… They would also make a really good dessert with some tea or coffee after dinner. The eggs are definitely soft with the cream cheese and avocado. The dill is a perfect match.

I love champagne however, I’m no fan of Brut. It has taken me forever to find a champagne that I like but, use whatever beverage makes all this work (a whole twenty minutes) worth it.

Then sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.