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| Just my morning view <3 |
When I moved in with my husband (then boyfriend) I still didn't bake a lot (or really at all). For one, I still had that awful work schedule (it was split so I worked from 8 to 1 and then 6pm to 10pm).
I think there's a couple of other reasons I wasn't baking right when we moved in together. The space still didn't feel like mine or even ours. I was so used to being in other people's spaces (my mother's kitchen, my various roommates' kitchens) that even though the kitchen was/is mine, it took me a while to claim it. It took a while for us to find a groove in the kitchen. When we moved in together we had been dating for 4 months. I knew he was my person but we were still on "good" behavior since it was a new living situation. Living with someone new is always a challenge, a balancing act. And sometimes it takes a little while to put our shields down. I'm a mess in the kitchen. I'm a great cook but I am a disaster walking. I didn't want to scare him with my messy baking tactics. And what if he didn't like what I made?
But now we've been living together for almost 2 years. I've been at my "new" job for over a year and it has a regular 8-4:30 schedule (not counting my crazy commute). I've been cooking so much more in the past year and a half than when I was teaching. And slowly I've been incorporating more baking into my life again.
I've made Apple Pies, Cranberry Tarts, chocolate chip coconut cookies (that were an epic fail... but I baked them), coconut macaroons, brownies and cupcakes. Slowly, but surely, I've been getting back into the groove.
I used to love baking. I would do it once or twice a week and feed family, friends and students. It was a great stress relief. It helped me stay mellow when I felt like things were spiraling out of control.
Nowadays, I feel more in control of life, but I still miss baking. Plus, it's fun to watch Baros' reaction. He's only had limited interactions with me and baking so it's entertaining to surprise him when I actually do bake.
This weekend I decided to make scones for us.
It actually started because we have had a bag of cranberries in the fridge for ages now. Cranberries are hardy, so they don't go bad super easily, but we were pushing the limits.
Baros wanted me to create another Cranberry Tart, but since I knew I'd probably have to throw away a good portion of the cranberries, I decided I wanted to try something else.
I don't really know why scones popped into my head but I love them so I did a little research for recipes. I couldn't find many that used fresh cranberries as opposed to dried cranberries so in the end I settled on this recipe from allrecipes.com.
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| yummy scones and coffee for breakfast |
I used blood orange zest instead of regular orange, solely because I had blood oranges. I switched out the walnuts for chocolate chips simply because I was tired of chopping things.
The original recipe says that prep time is 20 minutes but I found that inaccurate. Dicing the butter was quick but Roughly chopping the cranberries took FOREVER. They kept running away from the knife! The other thing that took a while was dealing with the brown sugar! Our fault though, not the original recipe. Our brown sugar had decided to turn into stone. I feel like there's a trick to prevent it from happening, but I can't remember what! If anyone has any tips, let me know.
I also couldn't remember a trick to get it to soften quickly so we did the next best thing... We got the grater out.
Well... Baros got the grater out. He was amazing enough to grate me a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. It was super fine and I think actually helped the recipe!
That took me a long time, but everything else was pretty quick.
In the end I chopped about 2 cups of cranberries. I froze 1 cup for future use because I'll definitely be making these again.
Here's my version:
Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar, grated
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled and diced
1 cup fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
1/3 cup white sugar
1 grated zest of one blood orange
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup half-and-half cream
1 egg
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.
Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. I used a fork but there are specialty tools for that step as well that can speed it up.
In a separate bowl, toss cranberries with sugar, and orange peel.
Add to the flour mixture along with the chocolate chips. Mix lightly.
In another bowl (I used the same one I used for the cranberries), beat the cream and egg together.
Slowly pour it into the dry ingredients, mixing with a rubber spatula until a dough forms.
Knead the dough 4 or 5 times. DO NOT over handle. I would recommend using a little bit of flour on your hands at this stage to avoid sticking.
Divide dough in half and place on a lightly floured surface. shape each half into a 6 inch circle and cut into 6 wedges each.
Place the scones onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. (You can also used a lightly greased baking sheet, but I wanted to avoid some of the clean-up).
Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.
Our oven is tricky, so we baked it for 10 minutes on the bottom shelf, and 10 minutes on the top.
Oh man, they came out perfectly! I was really impressed with the outcome especially since I've only made scones once before.
I'll definitely be baking those again.
So more scones over the weekend, maybe some banana bread!
I'm excited for all the possibilities.
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| Hubby and me plotting our next bakes while out!! |
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