Alpha Bakers -- Flaky Cream Cheese Scones

Just saw this post lurking in my drafts and thought I should put it out there. I assume the scones, like all scones, were great.

Alpha Bakers - Irish Cream Scones

Cream scones are a miracle of simplicity. No butter to cut, no eggs, just a quick batter, a quick rest, and a quick bake. Naturally I managed to leave out the sugar and folded it in at the last second, but theoretically simple stuff.

 

The glaze is a mix of sugar, butter, corn syrup, and similar things, stirred into a fruit puree. Instead of making the raspberry puree in the recipe, I used a bit of a Thanskgiving leftover sitting in my fridge, a bag of chunky bits from Libby's cranberry ginger jelly experiment. It was not as smooth as the raspberry puree would have been but the flavor and texture were spot on.

 

Having recently started spending some time with a person who despises breakfast pastry, I've been slightly defiant every time I turn some out, but I made some yeasted waffles last week as well as these scones and can assure the team that I still like breakfast pastry as much as any reasonable person with a soul should. 

Tuesdays with Dorie: Far Breton and Honey Nut Scones

Rustic pastry bathed in golden light? Oh yes.

As I may have mentioned, Tuesdays with Dorie is finishing up and doubling up recipes to make it to the end by year's end. This week, both recipes were so appealing that I made them in one night.

Above, we have the Far Breton, a high-level example of what the British call nursery food--custardy batter pocked with sweet dried raisins, craisins, and cherries. The Far was a close cousin of some other good friends of mine, the clafoutis, the popover, and the cup custard, and so completely compelling in its eggy-ness that I ate it all in about 24 hours.

With most of my attention focused on the Far Breton, I didn't have a lot of time for the eating of scones, but these honey-walnut ones won my approval by being very plain and simple. Whole-wheat pastry flour was allowed to shine, and they were a perfect jam vehicle.

Speaking of jam vehicles, nursery custard, and the end of the year, I wanted to take a second to float an idea I've been hatching. (Mixed metaphor alert--unless the idea is perhaps a duck.) Having built a pretty decent reputation in the neighborhood as a provider of delicious things, I'd like to launch a little consignment business for the holiday season, providing pies, cookie plates, and other good things upon request. Perfect for your dinner party or host gift dilemma. More on this shortly, and all suggestions welcome.

Normal as Blueberry Pie

If there's a better thing than the classic American musical, I may have yet to see it, and I've seen Macchu Picchu, Lake Victoria, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and one or two other things. But for a combination of sheer verve, skill, abandon, and riotous desire to make everyone happy, RIGHT NOW, the American musical comedy is it. It has its dark lows too, its broken dreams and bitter underbelly--nothing reaches heights without hitting real bottoms. 


I've spent the better part of my life involved in what may or may not be 'avant-garde' theater. I see any number of quite serious plays, strange in formula and unusual in topic. It's my not-so-well-concealed scrubbed-clean secret that if there's Rogers and Hammerstein playing next door, I'm pushing my way through the caged rabbits or badmitton birdies, the on-set camera wires and the stray architectural models to get there. Give me 'Wonderful Guy,' and I'm good for days. 

I can't dance for anything, and despite a quite decent singing voice I was rarely cast advantageously in school productions (to be honest, I have a long record of specializing in the characters who shout and don't get songs...the boss from Pajama Game all the way through to the mother in Crazy for You). Perhaps my greatest feat was wobbling around on roller skates through the first act of Funny Girl. At least that's the one immortalized in the hallway of my old high school, flapper rig and all. And it was awesome. If anyone offered me part in any musical anywhere, right now, libraries and bakeries could shove it (for a while, anyway). 


As things are, I find other ways to channel my madness, and to glam it up with passion and power (oddly, I've never watched Glee). Mostly, I keep on cooking, for that other kind of pure pleasure that lights up faces when you hand them the chocolate chip cookie. For the rush of hard work as it smells good out of the oven. For the burn of chile heat. And because I'm still kind of Dorie Greenspan's willing slave. 

This week, I did a little Tuesdays with Dorie in the form of some Almond Scones with Dried Cherries, which were perfect in taste, and perhaps just a little loose in texture...I've gotten addicted to stiff scones (that sounds awkward). 

I also did a little French Fridays with Dorie, to the tune of Short Ribs in Red Wine and (no) Port. Yes, despite recent excursions to Lisbon I have no port in the house, and wasn't about to pour out my Ginjinha into the mix. The grocery store was down to one tiny one pound package of short ribs, so I cut the recipe down to approximately one ninth, and made some substitutions. Somehow I got a few wrinkled bulbs of celariac into the vegetable aromatic mixture, but forgot the actual celery that I'd bought for the purpose. The finished dish, in my house, was small and unceremonious, but Matt was a fan. He also suggested that the meat would be great shredded and put into a pita with some yogurt sauce, but as we had so little meat to begin with, we didn't get the chance to go all Greek on its ass. It also made the whole kitchen smell great when it was cooking--the best thing about a braise is the anticipation. And the bones.

I was also very happy with the method, which eschewed a stovetop browning of the meat--always a messy affair, with a few minutes under the broiler before and after the braise. I'm going to see if I can adapt this one to other recipes. 


It was a triumph! A belly laugh! A wild ride! A balaboosta! Applause! 
Excuse me, I have to go watch some more youtube videos of my favorite songs now.

Tuesdays With Dorie - Apple Cheddar Scones

This is the week of the cheese puff and the cheese puffy thing. For Jill's party the other night, I tried my hand at some impromptu gougeres, crispy cheddary puffs that didn't rise as high as they could have, but were scarfed nonetheless. Whether everyone will forgive me for turning on the oven on an overheated night in the middle of party prep remains to be seen. I really have to think ahead a little more about that, my love of sweaty baking notwithstanding.

Luckily, I have temporarily relocated to Northampton, MA, which is not quite so sticky. Today's Tuesdays With Dorie project, Apple Cheddar Scones, is brought to you from my parents' newly retiled kitchen.
These scones are so sticky that I used the option Dorie included and treated them more like drop biscuits, which the recipe resembles anyway (more butter, less cream). Longer meditation on the differences between a biscuit and a scone is clearly needed. I noted an Australian blogger on the TWD blogroll pondering just that, but her cultural equations just threw me into deeper confusion.
The dough is simple, a mix of all-purpose flour and cornmeal, leavened with baking soda and baking powder, lightly sugared and salted, butter rubbed in, buttermilk, egg and apple cider mixed in, and diced apple (I used fresh instead of the recommended dried) and grated cheddar (or Cheddar Jack pregrated mix) mixed in. The whole is then just scooped onto a baking sheet and is in the oven now, smelling good.
Seriously though, how is this not a biscuit?