Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Favorite Scones

I find myself buying scones every time I go to Panera. As much as I love the cinnamon kind, I never got around to making them. It seems that chocolate chips and blueberry scones are the most common flavors to bake maybe because cinnamon chips are so hard to find or only available during the Holidays.

Well.......Search no longer! I came across this great recipe for cinnamon chips so I thought I should start baking right away.

I have been baking dozens of scones ever since. I have shared them around and around. No one seems disappointed and my father-in-law wants "encore, encore and encore". Which certainly is  a compliment since he is a great baker himself.


Enough talking...let's get cooking...

Cinnamon Chips

Ingredients:
Makes approximately 2 cups.

2/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
3 Tablespoons Ground Cinnamon
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Shortening
2 Tablespoons Light Corn Syrup
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees

Mix ingredients together with a fork. It will take a while and the dough should look like the one  pictured above when it is ready. Not too gooey or too dry

With your fingers spread the dough flat onto a piece of parchment paper that has been sprayed lightly.
Bake for 35 minutes and let cool completely

Slice the dough into strips and then cut across to make small squares

When the entire dough is sliced into cubes, I place them in a paper bag for about 24 hours to give them time to dry a bit and then I transfer them to a Ziploc bag until needed

At this point, the consistency of these chips is so soft that they will blend a little too well with the scones dough if used right away. Trust me on this one. I could not wait to bake and ended up with chip less but very flavorful scones! So if you are a chippy kind of person, wait a day or two to use the cinnamon chips.

Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups All Purpose flour
1/3 Cup sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
8 Tablespoons (1 Stick) Unsalted Butter, Frozen
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1 Large Egg
1/2 Cup Cinnamon chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt to food processor. Mix well.
Cut the butter into small squares, add to the flour mixture and pulse until blended. The flour mixture should look dense but not clumpy at this point.
Blend sour cream and egg together in a small bowl and add to the flour mixture. Pulse until a ball of dough starts to form. Add Cinnamon Chips or Chocolate chips. Pulse a few more times until blended and a ball has formed.
Remove dough and place onto a lightly floured surface to form a disk about 3/4 inch think. Sprinkle with a little bit of sugar and slice the dough into 8 triangles. Place wedges on a silpad non stick mat or parchment paper and bake for 15 to 17 minutes. The top should be slightly brown. You do not want to overcook them.
You can freeze them individualy and pop one in the oven when craving. Just place frozen scone on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or non stick mat and put in the oven. Turn the oven on at 400 degrees and bake for about 18 minutes or so. Check for doneness so it does not overcook.

I love my "France" Glass. Thanks to my friend Mary Evans for thinking of me. She also gave me a "Paris" one to go with that one.

Love me some cinnamon scones
I didn't really eat two, although I think I could have

I also made a batch of Chocolate Chip Scones

Can you see the choc chips?
Yummy

Monday, March 4, 2013

Guests Wash Cloths

Multitasker is my middle name!
The reason why I have not posted anything in the last week is because I have been working on several projects at once!

1. I am giving our master bathroom a small facelift. This project is taking me so long to finish because I have not been able to focus on it 100%.  I promise to write about it and share my DIY and photos within the next couple of weeks.

2. I am building a custom dinning room table. After searching for the ONE table that could fit our life style and budget for many months and not finding anything, I finally give up on the online shopping and got to work. This project is half way done and will hopefully be completed by the end of this week if weather permits.

3. I have been knitting away..... I learned to knit when I was a little girl and loved making sweaters and blankets for my dolls when I was in elementary school. It's funny how you never forget certain skills. I thought I would have to re learn to knit but it's kind of like riding a bike. The only thing I noticed is that I am much slower at it!  I have been practicing my old knitting skills by using several simple pattern of wash cloths for my guests.

I apologize in advance for the quality of my images. We have been having very cloudy and rainy weather lately and the use of the flash was necessary.



This pattern is called the chinese waves. it was very simple to follow but required some attention. As you can see above, I messed up a few rows when I was distracted. If you would like to better see or learn how to knit this pattern, you can find the how to-video here. If you prefer a PDF version, please click here.

Who doesn't know how to pearl? This is the first stitch I ever learned to knit. It is so simple and easy to follow. I do not have a pattern for this wash cloth but you can check youtube for How to-videos.

This pattern is called Grandmother's favorite. It has a little boarder all the way around and the stitching is diagonal which requires to increase the number of stitches and decrease them. This how to video can be found here. Note: this video is showing you how to create this pattern the continental way which is the way I learned to knit.

I am currently working on several washcloths which are knitted with the pearl stitch in a diagonal way but with no borders. I will update this page as soon as I am finished.

Hope you will give knitting a try!