After having one my first eggs benedict from Vienna Cafe (aside from one from a breakfast buffet in Hawaii), I was hooked.

A pillow-like, poached egg with an oozing yolk on a bed of ham, topped with some rich, heart-seizing hollandaise is to die for.

I found out one of my heroes, Alton Brown, had an episode on eggs benedict so I found an episode and got to learning!

After following his episode’s instructions exactly our hollandaise was WAY too red. He called for 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper and then later even added more! His Food Network instructions called for 1/8 tsp. to start. Someone messed up.

So we retried the recipe the following day and it was incredible!

This was adapted from Alton’s recipe. He baked homemade english muffins, but we used store bought. Lemon juice rounds out the sauce well. Use a lemon squeezer for faster results if you’re making a huge batch.

Get an english muffin, top with ham, a poached egg and top off with hollandaise.