TWD—Honey Nut Scones

For the month of November, we have the option of two recipes each week for Tuesdays With Dorie.  We are so close to finishing all the recipes in her book, Baking From My Home To Yours, that we’re trying to get the last few done by the end of the year.  The group (and others who want to sign up) are planning to start baking from Dorie’s book, Baking With Julia.  I’m excited because I’ve had the book for a few years now and have often been intimidated with many of the recipes enough that I haven’t made much from it. 

This week we had the choice (or could make both) of Honey Nut Scones (page 31) and Far Breton (page 202-203).  I was going to make both and plan to make as many of the remaining recipes I can, but this week flew by me and I just barely got to the scones Monday afternoon.  So, no Far Breton here.  I do want to check out on the TWD website any others who did make it and see how it turned out.

The scones were easy to make and I whipped up half a recipe in no time.  I followed the recipe, okay, well almost.  The recipe called for some all purpose flour and some whole wheat flour, but I just went ahead and used whole wheat pastry flour for all of the flour—you know, so the scones are healthy.  And Dorie’s recipe called for whole milk, but I just used 2%—see, more healthy. ;)   Just before baking the eight smaller scones, I brushed them with cream and sprinkled them with turbinado sugar.  Love that extra sweet crunch and pretty much always do that with scones.   I baked them for 15 minutes (the recipe says 20). 

Now I have scones that I just have to be careful and not eat too many at once.  Couldn’t resist (or disappoint certain people) and not put a little chocolate love into the scones.  So I spread some Nutella on one.  GOOD stuff.

This scone recipe was chosen by Jeanette at The Whimsical Cupcake and you can get the recipe on her blog.  Check out that girl’s mad baking and photography skills!

If you’d like to see the Far Breton and get the recipe, you can find it at Nicole’s blog, Cookies On Friday.  It’s not something I’ve ever seen or heard of before and there isn’t a picture in the book, so I’m intrigued with this one.   

A lot more goodness to gawk at over at Tuesdays With Dorie!

TWD—Coconut Scones with Dried Cherries, Pistachios and White Chocolate

Scones, scones—get more scones here!  Last week we made Dorie’s Cream Scones to which I added chocolate chips and toffee bits.  This week our chosen recipe was for Chestnut Scones, which are supposed to have chestnut flour—which is near to impossible to find and if you do find it, it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.  I have a two pound bag of coconut flour that I’ve barely dipped in to, so I decided that is what I’d use.  If I’m going to make any scones, they can’t just be plain, so I looked through my baking cupboard and decided to add some dried tart cherries, pistachios and some chopped white chocolate.  All were well received to the coconut scones. 

I only made a half batch and ate a couple for lunch (they’re small), along with some snap peas and an apricot.  I always brush my scones with some cream, which is what adds a nice shine to them.  It’s simple to half a recipe when you use a scale, even the egg.  I weighed one cracked egg and it was 50 grams, so I just took out 25 grams of egg (cooked up the other half in the microwave really quickly, let it cool and gave it to the dog to eat—he LOVES eggs.  No really, would it be bad to just feed our doggy eggs and bologna/hot dogs as his main source of food?  Those things are cheaper than dog food and Chip won’t hardly eat any dog food!  By the way, I’m kidding—we wouldn’t only give Chip eggs and bologna, but he sure does love it when one of the boys don’t finish one they’re having and he gets their leftovers!)

 

Back to the scones!  The coconut flour made these just a little bit more crumbly than last week’s cream scones, but they are still good.  I used 1/3 cup of cherries, 1/4 cup pistachios, and 2 ounces of white chocolate. 

This week’s recipe was chosen by Andrea from Andrea In The Kitchen.  She’s got the recipe on the link to her blog.  Not too sure what you think about scones, especially if you grew up with these scones like I did (which are delicious in their own right), but give some like these or last week’s scones a try!  Scones galore over at the Tuesdays With Dorie website.

TWD—Cream Scones—with Chocolate Chips and Toffee Bits

Scones!  Love them.  For Tuesdays With Dorie this week, Lynne from Cafe Lynnylu chose for us to make Dorie’s Cream Scones (page 27).

One of my dearest, kindred friends (a roommate from BYU) was in Utah last week and I had the pleasure of her staying with us a couple days.  I’ve known Bonnie for almost 20 years, it was great to see her!  One morning, I whipped up a half batch of the scones for breakfast before she woke up (her sister was also staying here one night).  The scones were a great addition to breakfast along with yogurt, homemade granola and fruit.  Bonnie and her sister really liked the scones.  So did I!

Scones are so simple to make.  These have an egg and butter along with the cream.  I decided to add some mini chocolate chips and toffee bits, since these are my favorite mix-ins to scones.  I already have a favorite scones recipe that also has cream in it.  I like that it doesn’t have butter and egg, too.  (You know me, trying to save every fat gram and calorie I can, so I’ll probably stick with that recipe—which I’ve also made a little lower fat and with whole wheat flour and they were still great--blueberry lime scones.

Don’t get me wrong, Dorie’s cream scones are great—nothing like a little butter flavor to add to the deliciousness of something!  Oh yeah, the chocolate and toffee help there, too! 

I like that these are smaller, you know, so you don’t feel bad eating 2 or 3 of them. hehe

Here’s a picture of Bonnie and I the morning she left.  She was off to a wedding all pretty and ready to go and there I am with morning bed head, plain faced and a t-shirt.  sigh  Oh well.  I’m glad we got a picture.

 

Bonnie lives in California and has forever (except for college days).  She took me to Disneyland for the first time, in 1993, actually it was the only time I’ve been there—we plan to take the boys there next year.

Here’s Bonnie and I sportin’ that awesome 90’s hair.

And here we are ready to par-tay at a 70’s dance.  And I can’t believe I’m posting this nasty photo of me, but Bon looks so good that I went ahead with it.   Ah, the good old days.  A few years ago, in 2006, Bonnie so graciously let my mom, sister-in-law, Monica and I spend a few days with her while we spent time in LA (We went to The Price Is Right—to fulfill my dream of seeing Bob Barker before he retired, he retired the next year!  We also went to The Ellen Show—such a great time!  And we spent a day in San Diego.)  Super fun to get to spend time with Bonnie again then.  Those kinds of friendships are priceless.  Thanks, Bon!  I can’t help it, but always sing “My Bonnie lives near the ocean, my Bonnie lives near the sea….bring back, oh bring back, oh bring back my Bonnie to me!” ;)

Hey, you can get the recipe for Dorie’s cream scones on the link above for Lynne’s blog.  Check out other TWD blogger's scones, too!

Deep Fried Scones (Sopapillas)

I have become a lover of scones—the English ones, the little (or big!) biscuit like tea scones that seem to be all the rage, but my family has not embraced them.  Growing up and even still, in my house and family and surroundings, if you say scones, people think of deep fried scones (also known as sopapillas).  So easy to make, so much like a fresh donut without the hole and dangerously delicious.  So we made them for family night last week.  The boys (and Kevin!) really like fried food!  It is a rare occasion that I give in and fry them up something.
These are best (in my opinion) still warm with butter and a nice drizzle of honey.  They are also good with some cinnamon and sugar or a dusting of powdered sugar.  The boys devoured a few big ones each.  I will admit to possibly eating the one in the photo.    You can make them any size you’d like.  I believe these would work with any type of roll dough, cinnamon roll dough or most bread dough.  You take the desired amount (depending on what size you’d like them) of risen dough and flatten it out to between 1/2 and 1/4 inch thickness with your hands (no rolling pin needed).  Then you just fry it (a minute or two per side) and drain them on paper towels set on a cooling rack.  You can find recipes all over the internet and they are most often called sopapillas, but growing up we always called them scones.  I found a recipe on www.recipegoldmine.com for Granny Annie’s Deep-Fried Scones, which happens to be a local SLC family restaurant.  I decided to go with that recipe although I think when it was written up and posted on Recipe Goldmine, they must of halved part of the recipe and not other parts of it.  I didn’t realize it until I’d already started making it and ended up using over 10 cups of flour and having A LOT of dough!  I froze a bunch of it in golf ball sized amounts to use at a later time as well as made a pan of cinnamon rolls with part of the dough.  But we were definitely able to make plenty of fresh deep fried scones that night!  Here’s my adapted (and corrected) version of the recipe.
Deep Fried Scones, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup plus 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar (divided use)
1/2 cup warm water
1/2  teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup warm milk (I used 2%)
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup warm water
4-5 cups all purpose flour
In a large bowl, combine yeast, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 cup warm water.  Let the mixture sit until bubbly (about 5 minutes).  Stir in 1/2 cup sugar, salt, egg, milk, extra water and oil.  With a wooden spoon, stir in flour a cup at a time, mixing after each addition.  Once the dough is not too sticky, but still soft and well kneaded together (this only takes a few minutes), cover it and let rise until double in size (about an hour). 
In a large, deep skillet (or a deep fryer), heat about 2 inches of canola oil to 375 degrees.  Pull off amount of dough for the size of scone desired and stretch it out to about 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick.  (The thinner the better.)  Place the dough in the hot oil.  Deep fry until golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes on the first side and another minute or so on the other side.  Remove from oil and drain on paper towels lining a cooling rack.  Serve warm with butter and honey, or cinnamon and sugar or powdered sugar. 
 
These are worth every calorie, carbohydrate and fat gram—occasionally. ;)

TWD—Oatmeal Nutmeg Scones With Apricots and Pecans

We made scones this week for Tuesdays With Dorie.  Patricia from Life With a Whisk chose the recipe and she’ll have the recipe on her blog.  I really like scones.  Unfortunately, I’m the only one around here who does.  I know I could have froze some of the unbaked scones and I should have, but they just all nicely lined themselves up on the baking sheet, so they all got baked.

Twelve perfect looking scones with some unique ingredients like oats, buttermilk, pecans, apricots and a touch of nutmeg.  I added half a cup of toasted pecans and chopped dried apricots.  I brushed them with some cream and sprinkled turbinado sugar on top before they baked.   

   

I tasted one of the scones and thought they still just needed a little more touch of something sweet.  A little white chocolate drizzle was the perfect thing.

I liked these enough that I had the boys take a plateful of them to the neighbors.  Great pick for this week.  You just can’t go wrong with scones and these were really easy to make.  A link to all the other scones at TWD today.

TWD—Toasted Almond Scones and Giveaway Reminder

I made this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie pick of Toasted Almond Scones on Sunday.  They were chosen by Mike whose blog is Living Out West.  Love his blog.  Well done, always clever and great photos!

I was a little worried about making the scones because I already have a favorite scone recipe AND I knew Kevin and the boys wouldn’t eat them (annoying, huh).  So I decided to health them up as much as I could and still try to have them be good.  And it worked.  I think they are great.  I did talk Kevin in to trying one and the main thing he doesn’t like is the grainy/crumbliness they have from the almond meal.  (He doesn’t like cornbread for the same reason.)  He said he likes the flavor of them though.  He did also mention that they aren’t sweet enough (I explained to him that scones aren’t supposed to be.  But just to be nice and in hopes that he’d eat more, I drizzled a glaze on them.

Like I said, I really like them and although I did make them healthier, I still need  to not just be the only one to eat them.  There is still about half a dozen of them sitting on the counter.  Scones are definitely better fresh from the oven, too. 

 

My changes were that I used some almond meal I have instead of grinding almonds.  I only added 1/4 cup of sliced almonds to the dough instead of 1/2 cup.  I used skim milk instead of whole milk.  Though I did use cream as directed.  I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter instead of butter and I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  I brushed the tops before baking them with some cream and sprinkled some turbinado sugar on top as well as the sliced almonds.  The scones baked for 17 minutes.   They do have a little bit of a wheat taste from the whole wheat pastry flour, but it works well with the almond flavor.

Thanks, Mike!  Great pick.  Check out more scones at the TWD website.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the giveaway from CSN Stores I’m having on this link.  Last week in celebration of my Three Year Blogging Anniversary, I posted a $75 giveaway for anything you want at CSN Stores.  The giveaway is open until Wednesday, February 23 (tomorrow!) at 12 noon MST and you can enter up to three times.  Thanks, CSN!

Delicious Whole Wheat Blueberry Lime Scones

I made these scones last Sunday and am super happy with how good they turned out.  I have a more recent love of scones after learning such an easy recipe last year.  The scones are originally made with just cream (no butter).  All you do is mix a few dry ingredients together, then stir in some cream.  Don’t overmix.  Add whatever mix-ins you’d like, just mixing to combine, flatten the dough on the counter and cut.  So easy.  The only other time I’ve ever even made scones were these a year ago.  I don’t know why I’ve never eaten or baked scones before that, but I’m glad I now have such an easy recipe to whip some up when it strikes my fancy to do so.

I must just say that when I decided to try to make these cream scones a little healthier, I was worried what the great Chef Paige would think as I know she doesn’t alter recipes with whole wheat flour and when I went to look up her recipe on her blog, she specifically wrote in the recipe CREAM (no substitutions).  Well, I was all set to see how these would turn out with whole wheat flour and half and half instead of cream.  I decided if it didn’t work, I’d just not tell anyone.  And as much as I make a lot of Paige’s recipe (as written), I’m actually really happy that these turned out so well with the changes I made.  I’ve heard some say that they miss it when there is no butter in a scone, but I don’t know any different, so I’m happy.  Will I always use half and half instead of cream from now on and whole wheat flour instead of all purpose?  Probably not.  But when I’m feeling the need to watch what I’m eating a little bit, these are perfect! You can find the “real” recipe on the link to Paige’s blog.  (Yes, I realize it’s not like half and half is all good for ya, but with me, every little fat gram counts.)  Here’s the recipe for the scones I made.

Delicious Whole Wheat Blueberry Lime Scones, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups (240 grams) white whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup granulated sugar

zest of 1 lime (1 teaspoon)

1  1/4 cup half and half (plush more for brushing on scones)

1 pint blueberries

Turbinado sugar (optional)

GLAZE:

1 cup powdered sugar

1  1/2 tablespoons half and half (or milk)

1  1/2 teaspoons lime juice

pinch salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

In a large bowl, combine the white whole wheat flour, baking powder and salt.  In a small bowl, add the sugar and lime zest.  Rub the zest into the sugar until well mixed and fragrant.  Add the zested sugar to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.  Pour the half and half into the dry ingredients and stir just barely to combine.  Do no overmix.  Add the blueberries and carefully fold in a few times.  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead just a few times until it’s formed into a ball.  Lightly flatten the dough with your hands, then roll with a rolling pin until it’s about 3/4 inch thick.  Slice the dough circle into desired size wedges.  I made 12, 8 is more traditional.  The dough is a little sticky.  Carefully pick up each piece by scooping it with a spatula and placing them on the baking sheet.  Brush each with half and half, then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.  (You don’t NEED the turbinado sugar, especially if you’re glazing the scones, but I like the bit of crunch it adds.)

Bake for 12-15 minutes.  Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then remove each scone to a cooling rack.  While they are cooling, make the glaze, by adding the powdered sugar and a pinch of salt to a medium size bowl.  Stir in the half and half and lime juice and whisk until smooth.  Drizzle the glaze over the cooled scones. (Lay a cutting matt or the baking sheet under the cooling rack to catch the drips.)

You could just enjoy the scones like this, but since I was saving so much ;) on fat and calories, I decided to glaze them.

Try not to eat 3-4 of them at once!

Symphony Chocolate Toffee Almond Scones and a Vegetable Goat Cheese Tart

I have been taking some cooking demo classes at our local natural foods market.  Most of them that I've taken are by an amazing local chef, Paige Vandegrift.  She makes some amazing and wonderful food--food that I would never have thought I'd make or (and especially) like eating.  Like for instance, she uses onions a lot.  And we ALL know how I feel about onions.  But (and Mom, you'd be proud of me), I always taste/eat everything she makes.  You see, how could I turn down this wonderful food that we in the class have just watched her prepare for us?  Everything is always so good.  I think I'm also drawn to these classes because every now and then I get to go have someone cook for me, I won't hear anyone whining or complaining and I get to just leisurely enjoy my food.  What a great thing!  And as a bonus, I'm learning a lot from the lovely Paige, Le Cordon Bleu in London trained chef.  To me, she's like our own Julia Child right here in little ol' Kansas!  I wish I could blog everything she's made in all the classes I've been to, but that would take a separate blog in itself.  She makes usually 4-5 different dishes at each class. 

I've made a lot of Paige's recipes since taking some of her classes.  Maybe not the prettiest dish, but I made this Corn, Zucchini and Pink Eyed Peas Succotash (yep, there's onions in there and I even put them in.  I know, you're feeling so proud of me!)  And while I could taste the onions, all the other flavors were really good and the onions wasn't too overpowering.

I've made other things as well but especially wanted to share Paige's scones with you as well as a perfectly flaky and wonderfully flavored vegetable goat cheese tart.  At the last class I went to just last week, Paige served us cornmeal shortcakes with peaches, mint and soured cream.  Yes, it was as good as that sounds!  I have had some friends over the last couple years talk about some amazing scones they got the recipe for from these classes they've taken.  I didn't realize at the time they were talking about Paige's scones, as I hadn't taken any of the classes then.  I heard from a number of people how great these cream scones are.  Paige mentioned at this last class that the cornmeal shortcakes were similar to her scones without the cornmeal and replacing the butter for all cream.  That's it, I'd heard enough talk about them and decided I needed to make some!  I have only made scones one other time and that was in May when I tried some pumpkin pecan butterscotch scones that Anna at Cookie Madness made.  They were good. 

So I made Paige's scones.  They are a base for scones that you can add anything you want to and so I did!

You had to know there would be chocolate in my scones.  Hershey's Symphony Milk Chocolate, Toffee and Almonds to be exact.  These. were. really. great!  These could not be more simple to make.

Cream Scones with Chocolate, Toffee and Almonds, adapted by Katrina (recipe from Paige Vandegrift)

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup heavy cream (plus a little more for brushing on the tops)

turbinado sugar (for sprinkling on the tops)

3 ounces Hershey's Symphony Milk Chocolate, Toffee and Almonds bar, chopped

1/4 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

1/4 cup Heath chocolate toffee bits

1/4 cup Ghiradelli 58% cacao baking chips

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Whisk to blend well. Add the "mix-ins." Stir in dry ingredients with a rubber spatula while pouring the cream, continuing to stir until a soft, sticky dough is formed.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly (8-10 times). Pat the dough into a circle 1/2" to 3/4" thick. Cut the circles into 8-12 wedges (depending on the size you want, I did 12!) and place the wedges an inch or so apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush each scone with cream and sprinkle generously with raw sugar.

Bake at 425°F until golden brown, about 15 minutes.  (Mine took 13 minutes.)  Remove to wire rack and cool. 

These scones are really healthy, so eat 2 or 3.  Oh yeah, kidding!  Well, there's almonds, those are healthy. ;)  Splurge, I say, you'll be happy you did!  I can't wait to try this scone recipe with lots of other mix ins.  You should use about a cup of mix-ins.  I may have used more than that, so sue me!

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Then there's this Provencal Vegetable Tart with Herbed Goat Cheese.  It was a little work, but worth it.  We had our neighbors over for dinner and they loved it and I loved it.  Kevin thought it was just okay, but that's just because he thinks everything should be spicy and he didn't think it had enough flavor.  Of course I'm going to think/say this, but the one Paige made in class and served us was better than mine.  This was made with a wonderful and easy short crust pastry dough.  It rolled out beautifully and will have to be a pie crust I try in the future for other things. 

Pate Brisee (Short Crusty Pastry), by Paige Vandegrift

1  1/3 cups all purpose flour (150 grams)

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces (114 grams)

3-4 tablespoons ice water

Combine the flour and salt in a medium sized bowl.  Rub the butter into the flour until the butter is in small pea-sized pieces.  Drizzle 3 tablespoons of water over the flour/butter mixture.  Using your hands, fluff the mixture until it begins to clump, adding more water if necessary.  Turn the dough out onto a counter and form into a mound.  Using the heel of your hand, gradually push all the dough away from you in short forward strokes, flattening out the lumps.  Continue until all of the dough is flat.  Using a bench scraper, scrape the dough off the counter, forming it into a single clump as you do.  Form the finished dough into a thick disk.  Chill for at least 30 minutes.   (*Disclaimer, Paige did all this by hand and strongly suggested that you NOT use a food processor, but me being the rebel that I am (and lazy), I used the food processor.  Short little pulses with the flour and butter, the key is not to over blend it.  And then she said if you do use a food processor to never add the water in the processor, do that part by hand.  I actually forgot and just added the water right to the processor, pulsed a few times, then turned the dough onto the counter and formed it.  It worked just fine, just DO NOT OVER PULSE IT.)

To roll out the dough after letting it warm up for a few minutes at room temperature.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.  Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a circle that is about 1/8 inch thick and is about 13 inches across.  Transfer the dough to a parchment lined baking sheet.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

From this point, I will skip a lot of the details, but if you'd like a more complete recipe, let me know.  The tart is then layered with a softened goat cheese (8 ounces) with about 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme.  Then about 12 ounces of Japanese eggplant, 12 ounces zucchini and 3-4 Roma tomatoes.  The eggplant and zucchini were broiled in the oven before going on to the tart.  The tomatoes (which I didn't have Roma and used cherry tomatoes) were sliced and lightly salted, then put on paper towel for 10-15 minutes to remove some of the excess liquid.

After assembling the goat cheese and vegetables on the tart, fold up the edges and bake in a 375 degree oven on the lowest rack until the tomatoes are slightly puckered and the crust is crisp and golden brown--about 45 minutes.  (I baked mine about 50 minutes).  Drizzle the tart with olive oil if desired and let rest for five minutes (or cool until just tepid) before serving.  Also the variations of flavors and vegetables to this are endless.   Again, let me know if you'd like more detailed directions to broiled the vegetables as I shortened this quite a bit for the recipe we received from Paige!

  

Ready for the oven.

  

Slice and serve.  Want a bigger piece?  You will.  Thanks, Paige!  Love the classes and all I'm learning in them!