Peach & Walnut Scones From The Careless Cook

 

 

If you’ve come to know The Careless Cook, you surely recognize he has few rules, but there is One Big One:  A recipe is just a suggestion, or if you prefer, a starting point.  From my point of view, cooking or baking is not a “be sure to follow the rules” situation, but coming to know your own tastes and the tastes of the folks you’re cooking for.  Don’t like their tastes? Cook for someone else!

 

You can bend the rules with great success, and good examples are vegetarians and vegans.  I am neither, but I have stroked recipes this way and that to make everyone feel welcome and still maintain great flavors coming out of the pot and the oven.

 

But, even when I bend over backwards, I run into situations that make me throw down my apron and walk away.  One fellow I know eats little to no vegetables that aren't over cooked until they are soft and tasteless. No salad either.  Sorry fella, go fricassee some squirrels. 

 

Another lady I was about to invite for lunch, without even a smile, laid down her rules:  If you cook for me, everything MUST be gluten free and fat free!  Well, if you think you’re talking to a short order cook, honey, you can kiss my roast beef and suck my French baguette.

 

But, let’s dispense with bitterness, join The Careless Cook and make his version of tasty scones.

 

As you probably know, scones are simple baked goods, with few ingredients and absolutely delicious.  But, of course the Careless Cook is never satisfied with the norm.  So, you may well ask, what are the ingredients and how did The Careless Cook diverge?  The usual ingredients are: flour, salt, butter, baking powder, sugar, and heavy cream.

 

Now let’s get into The Careless Cook's recipe!

 

Peach & Walnut Scones

Oven set to 450ºF or 230ºC

 

Ingredients

 

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup cornmeal (Don’t have or don’t like cornmeal, just skip it and add another ½ cup all purpose flour.)

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup of sugar

2 generous teaspoons baking powder

5 teaspoons butter at room temperature

¾ cup oat milk (or heavy cream, if you prefer) Note: I use full fat Oatly brand and it must be shaken very well before pouring.

1 15oz can of sliced peaches, drained and chopped

1 cup of walnuts, rough chopped

 

Note:  I made this into 20 square scones (a little thiner) because I was feeding the multitudes.  Traditionally, scone dough is formed into a circle about an inch thick, then cut into wedges.

 

Putting It Together

 

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the softened butter and use your hands to work the butter in.

 

Add the walnuts and peaches and mix well.  Add the oat milk or heavy cream and mix well again. 

 

Note:  If the dough is too soft add a bit more flour; if too heavy, add a little more liquid.  But either way, be careful not to end up with liquid dough or a brick.

 

Heavily dust your counter or board and plop the dough on it.  Knead gently into a soft dough and form into a square if you’re feeding a whole flock, or into a round for the traditional way.  No matter which you choose, put the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes if you make fairly thin scones (dough 1/2 inch thick) and up to 15 minutes for thicker (dough 1 inch thick). 

 

Note: Most ovens register a slightly different temperature.  My advice is to check the scones after ten minutes and go from there. 

 

When they’re out of the oven, it’s time for champagne if you work the day shift, or coffee if you’ve just come off the night shift.

 

To make this vegetarian or vegan, substitute faux butter for the regular kind and don’t use heavy cream. But, if your invited guest refuses to eat on the basis of gluten and fat free, offer rice crackers and lukewarm water.

 

Cherry Scones from The Careless Cook

 

Cherry Scones from The Careless Cook

 

By now everyone has a good scone recipe, but do you have The Careless Cook’s version? Let’s look at the very basic recipe.  Then we’ll talk luscious, fan pleasing, never to be forgotten, cherry scones.

 

I should warn you right away, if you’re a CPA, or a nuclear physicist, or a big fan of Julia Child, you’re going to be very disappointed by how The Careless Cook scampers through a recipe using the That Looks About Right (TLAR – pronounced T-Lar) method.  But, for the cook who is more interested in results than the process, this recipe may calm your nerves and settle those butterflies flapping their wings in your stomach.  After all, cooking at its best should be entertainment, for you and your ungrateful friends.

 

The Careless Cook’s Plain Scone Recipe

 

Heat the oven to 450ºF

 

Incredients

 

2 cups flour, plus a little more for rolling the dough (bread flour or all purpose flour) 

2 tablespoons baking powder (I sprinkle about what looks right in the palm of my hand)

2-3 tablespoons sugar (same)

3 tablespoons cold butter

½ teaspoon salt (Yes, that too)

1 cup heavy cream, also called whipping cream

 

Grab a bowl or your food processer (I do everything in my food processor) and mix the dry ingredients.  Now chop the butter into bits and blend it into the dry mixture. 

 

Add the cream and mix well to form a dough.

 

Scatter some flour on your counter. Form the dough into a ½ inch thick circle and cut it in sections as you would a pie.  Bake for 12-15 minutes.

 

 

 

But, what if you’re tired of the tried and true and feel like a blind date adventure? I’m talking Cherry Scones! 

 

Use the regular recipe, kinda….there are some changes!

 

Changes are in bold print

 

Cherry Scones

 

Heat the oven to 450ºF

 

Use a can of cherry pie filling and separate the cherries from the wet filling. See photo.

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/3 cup sugar, or more if you like

3 tablespoons cold butter

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup heavy cream

½ cup pie filling, minus the cherries

 

In a bowl or food processor, mix the dry ingredients.

 

Chop the butter into bits and blend well.

 

Add both the cream and the pie filling, but not the cherries.

 

Blend into a dough.  

 

Flour your counter. Roll out the dough to a ½ inch rectangle and cut as desired.  Mine are roughly two inches by two inches. With your fingers, press a cherry into each piece.

 

Bake for 10 – 11 minutes.  Remember each oven is different.  Mine took 11 minutes.

 

I sent all my cherry scones to a group of ladies and got rave reviews and very interesting comments that should have made me blush, were I bashful and shy.

 Try some other combinations:  Cinnamon, Lavender, Sweet Bacon, Lemon

Caramel Scones from The Careless Cook

 

Caramel Scones from The Careless Cook

 

I was still on the edge of sleep at 0800, but someone had a meeting to attend and it suddenly became my job to furnish coffee compatible knick-knacks for twenty-five hopeful ladies.  Most mere mortals would balk, or lack the confidence of The Careless Cook.  But, The CC never backs or bakes away from a challenge. 

 

I’m certain you assume he had a splendid recipe at hand; something that would flutter the hearts of the hopeful.

 

Sadly, he did not.  And, a search of Chef Google’s recipes revealed a tangle of either special ingredients, or lengthy and boring procedures that might cause The Careless Cook to begin drinking early, or race to the local grocer for cellophane packaged pastries created in a chemistry lab.  Could he inflict such culinary insults on the helpless?  No, he could not.  By helpless, he meant ladies who had outlived two or more husbands and raised a flock of children mostly single-handedly.

 

But wait a minute, thought this King of the Kitchen, What if I know a shortcut through the woods to grandmother's gullet?   Perhaps he’s found a way to avoid grating the butter, and not letting the dough rest until Santa knocks on the door, and eliminating hand mixing until the fingers lose their purpose?  Of course he has! 

 

Lesson number one:  A food processor beats the tactile massaging of, well, whatever.   I may have to rethink that, but I know for sure it’s handier than kneading by hand.  Close call.

 

So sifting through Chef Google’s repertoire, here’s what I came up with.

 

Caramel Scones from The Careless Cook

 

Heat oven to 400ºF or 200ºC

 

2 cups all purpose or bread flour (more for dusting)

2 ½ tablespoons of baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick of butter, cut into small chunks

½ cup brown sugar

white sugar for dusting

1 ½ apples (about 1 ½ cups) peeled and diced

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 egg

½ cup buttermilk (or use regular milk or cream or coconut milk)

 

Make your own caramel sauce for drizzling, or use the commercial version.

 

Toss everything, except the white sugar and the diced apple, into the food processor.  Turn it on and leave it on until a dough is formed. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour. 

 

Dust the counter with flour and roll out the dough to about half an inch thick.  Scatter the diced apple evenly over the dough.

 

Fold the dough onto itself until the apple bits are evenly distributed.

 

Roll the dough out again.

 

Cut to your own specifications. Wedge shape is the norm, but I cut the dough in small rounds, using what used to be a tomato-paste can. Matter of fact, all my round cutters used to be vegetable cans of one size or another.

 

Put the scones on a baking sheet, dust them with white sugar, and slide them in the pre-heated oven.

 

Bake for 12-15 minutes.  As I keep reminding everyone, all ovens are different.  In my case, it took the full 15 minutes.

 

When the scones come out, drizzle caramel sauce over each.

 

Hint:  If you use commercial caramel sauce, pour some in a bowl and use a spoon to drizzle.

 

I prepared enough scones for the feisty twenty-five.  No complaints and no scones came back!  Best of all, I was soon back in bed for an early nap, followed by a short trip to a delightful coffee shop.  Just for coffee, you understand.  The Careless Cook doesn’t consume their chemical concoctions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Savory Scones

Savory Scones

Simple question:  Do scones have to be sweet?

Complicated answer:  No.   Complicated because not everyone is willing to take ‘no’ for an answer.  These folks probably don’t know what savory means, or they’re contemplating dipping a corner of the scone in a morning’s Irish coffee.  I empathize and confess I have done that myself.  You need to put the brakes on that freight train after finishing off the whiskey at your local pub at four in the morning.

Give up?  Ok, savory comes from the French saveur, to savor.  It can mean flavored with several herbs, such as summer or winter savory, but these days it has come to mean tasty, but not sweet.

Another question: When were scones first made?

Answer:  Well, no one knows, but they were first mentioned by the Scottish poet Gavin Douglas in his 1513 translation of Virgil’s epic poem The Aenaid.

Yet another question:  In the middle ages, how did they make scones without an oven? 

Answer:  The traditional Irish and Welsh way! 

In days of old, when Knights were bold and ovens weren’t invented,

they baked on stones or sharpened bones and ate until contented.

But, of course as you sit there, stirring your Irish coffee with your tongue, sweet or savory doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that the recipe requires few moving parts.

Next question:  Where does the word scone come from?

Short answer:  Storks deliver them.  No, wait, I mean they were originally baked in Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany, and Dutchland.   Some believe the word is based on the German word Scönbrot (beautiful bread) and others think it’s from the Dutch word Schoonbrot.  Still other people don’t seem to care.  They just want to eat.

The Brits can’t even make up their minds how to pronounce the word.  In the south they’re pronounced scone, to rhyme with tone, as in the U.S.  But, in the north they’re pronounced scon to rhyme with gone.

Here’s the happy news for you inebriates. This joyous warm-from-the-oven delight requires only one moving part, your index finger to push the button on your food processor.  Ok, ok, you caught me.  You also have to turn on the oven.  But, if you and your three drinking companions can put one level head together, the oven should be no sweat.

Look, do you want to make savory scones or not?

Savory Scones

Suggestion:  Mix these before you head out to the pub; put them on a cookie sheet and stash them in the refrig.  When you come home, just turn on the oven and slide them in.

Dry ingredients:

2 ½ Cups flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon dry mustard powder

Throw one stick of butter in the freezer.

Now for the rest:

4 ounces goat cheese

2 Tablespoons chopped, sun dried tomatoes

2 Tablespoons fresh rosemary

Wet ingredient:

1 ½ Cups heavy cream

Turn on the oven to 425ºF or 220ºC

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse it a couple of times. Chop the frozen butter into medium bits.  Toss the butter in the food processor and process until the butter bits are tiny.

Toss in the goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and fresh rosemary and pulse a

few times.  Do not over process.  You want the bits to be clearly distinguishable, even with your bloodshot, beady eyes.

Add the wet ingredients and pulse to make a dough.

Form the dough into a rectangle, press down to about one inch thickness. Cut the rectangle in two inch or larger squares.

Put on an ungreased baking sheet (see, I’m doing my best to keep it simple for you.) and bake for 12 minutes.  The scones should be a toasty golden brown on top.

So, here’s to ya, lads and lassies! Savory scones!

The Singing Kettle - A perfect tea parlor in Dartmouth!

When I hear the word ‘tea,’ I immediately think of England. Cozy parlors. Painted porcelain cups.  Little cubes of sugar.  Lots of silver and all that.  Found the quintessential place in Dartmouth:  The Singing Kettle.

Although tea is served all over the world and some of the places I’ve drunk it, I better not mention.  After all, I have a wife, and friends, who say they bend in a broadminded sort of way, but look at you strangely when you do even the most innocent things, like pop a beer for breakfast, or point-out you can see the waitress’ nipples when she’s standing in the sunlight.  Closet Puritans.

As I was saying, England for me is the epicenter of the tea world.  Of course, a couple of billion Asians may feel slightly differently.

Tea hasn’t always been a cornerstone of English sociability.   Got to the shores in the mid 17^th Century and took a while to catch-on. Samuel Pepys, of diary fame, wrote in 1660 (or thereabouts):  "I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I had never had drunk before".

George Orwell (the novelist, 1984) also had some specific ideas about making and serving tea:  http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/A_Nice_Cup_of_Tea  You’re welcome to read the full list of his eleven, ironclad rules, but leave you only with this: 

“First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.”

In Devon, where the city of Dartmouth nestles on the banks of the River Dart, you’ll find the specialty is cream tea.  That doesn’t refer to the added liquid, which is almost always milk, but to the famous Devon clotted cream.  Clotted cream is rich cream, cooked in a specific fashion to make a spread with a consistency similar to sweet butter.  Clotted cream is served as a topping for scones or other pastries. Want to make your own scones?  One of my previous posts shows you how: http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2012/02/biscuits-go-to-london-magnificent-cream.html

Note the clotted cream on the uppermost plate.

Ah, the romance of tea.  Types range from dark and strong to light and simple.  You’re missing the point if you resort to bags.  Either that or you’re a wearied mother of two or three or (god pity you) four, in which case a pause is measured in seconds and silence is more valuable than bricks of gold.  Then, ok, even the most fastidious would understand if you simply put a tea bag in your mouth and sucked.

For the rest of us:  Use loose tea.  More flavorful by far.  Easier to gauge the strength of the tea.  Here’s a handy reference from The Republic of Tea:  http://the.republicoftea.com/library/tea-information/tea-101-how-to-steep-tea/

At The Singing Kettle you won’t have to worry. Your waiter will advise you on how long to let the tea steep.

Sugar or not?  Of course the sugar should always be cubed, not sifted. Stir gently.

How about milk, as the English usually take it?  Before or after pouring the tea?  Your choice.  Let the authorities quibble over the difference.

A couple of things I liked about The Singing Kettle, besides the tea, which comes in several excellent varieties, and the scones, which were perfect.  The Kettle was steps away from our Bed & Breakfast, in the heart of old Dartmouth.  Inside the tea room, the only sounds I heard were the soft, metallic sounds of teaspoons, and the gentle, subdued tones of conversation.  My feeling is, if I want noise and crowds, I’ll go where the noise and crowds are.  Definitely not for tea.

Did you know that the English consume more tea per capita than anyone else?  But, the other side of the coin is that tea consumption is going down.  Nope, coffee isn’t taking it’s place.  Herb tea and other healthful liquids are the culprits.

But, back to Dartmouth!  I would talk on and on about the virtues of The Singing Kettle.  Professional, efficient wait-staff.  Reasonable prices.  Luxurious atmosphere without making you feel uncomfortable in your street clothes, and of course the scones and clotted cream!  But, I think the photos tell a better story than mere words.

When you’re in Dartmouth, you will want a break from feverish shopping and a breakneck pace of sightseeing.  The Singing Kettle is the perfect place to relax, have a cuppa, nosh a bite or two and remember that you came to Dartmouth for a vacation from life’s cares.  Settle back.  Now, one lump or two?