Line a basket or a pretty dish with a napkin and fill it with breakfast bakes – hot, tender, and a little sweet. Hearty and robust or delicate cake-like, all slices of quick bread have a place on the morning table. Chunky jams and preserves go well with full-flavored bakes, while the more subtle ones need only sweet butter, a little crème fraîche, or perhaps a spoonful of jelly. Some breads, such as those filled with berries, need no accompaniment at all.

Quick breads are made from the same type of batter as muffins. They share the same uneven, sometimes cake-like crumb. They are breads usually feel with nuts and cranberries at Christmas, pumpkin puree near Thanksgiving, and zucchini at summer’s end when the garden is overrun with the squash. Quick breads very often benefit from being made a day ahead and wrapped tightly in foil to mellow their flavor, but I never can wait that long-)