Cherry Chocolate Scones

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and today we're supposed to bring in a yummy breakfast treat to share. I immediately thought of making morning buns, as they are the yummiest of morning treats. But they are also a lot of work, what with the folding and rolling and million layers of butter. Then I thought the next best thing would be cinnamon rolls. But I don't have time for yeast bread either. So I set out to find a tasty quick bread. I passed up several muffin recipes because they all contain nuts, which aren't allowed at school. I could have skipped the nuts, but they just wouldn't have been as good. Finally I settled on this cherry chocolate scone recipe. It's got tons of butter, so it tastes more like a buttery biscuit than anything, and is just to die for straight out of the oven.

Cindy's Cherry Chocolate Chip Scones, form Morning Food, by Fox & Bear

Ingredients:
1 egg
1.5 cups buttermilk (1.5 T lemon juice in measuring cup, add milk to 1.5 cups)
2 t almond extract
4 c flour
4 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1.5 cups (3 sticks) butter
1 c chopped dried cherries
1 c chocolate chips

Mix wet.

Combine dry, then cut in butter.

Add wet and stir until just combined. Then add in cherries and chocolate.

I found the dough a bit too wet to form into wedges at first, so I made drop scones. I did manage to make wedges for the last bit of dough.

Strawberry shortcake

Bread Pudding

I had some bread that needed eating, and I've been kind of craving bread pudding lately, so I decided to give it try. I wanted something custardy and rich, but I was also too lazy to go out and buy heavy cream. So I ended up with something in the middle. The bread I used is a part whole wheat, part oatmeal bread, which gave it a nice hearty flavor. I sprinkled in some chocolate chips - just enough so that R would eat it, but not so much that I would feel bad giving some to J too. 

Ingredients:

3 thick slices of bread, cubed

4 eggs

2 c milk

1/2 c sugar

1/4 t ground vanilla

1/2 t vanilla extract

handful of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Put bread cubes in 8 inch square pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Whisk remaining ingredients until well combined. Pour over bread cubes, making sure bread is completely saturated. Bake 45 minutes.

After pouring the custard into the pan, I decided I could squeeze more bread in, so I ended up using almost 4 slices of bread. In the end, I think it was a mistake, making the pudding too dry.

Best Christmas present ever

Okay, maybe not The Best, but it's a pretty darn good one.  I've never heard of Casa Noble, but this review makes it sound just amazing:

http://www.grapesandgrainsnyc.com/2010/11/10/a-taste-of-casa-noble-reposado/

Smells of caramel and maple syrup, tastes of brown sugar and and citrus reminiscent of baked pie, and finishes with lime and roasted pineapple?  A tequila that tastes like pie.  Right up my alley, for sure.  If only I didn't have to wait a million more months to try it out. :(

Frangipane Galette

I've been wanting to try baking a frangipane tart of some sort for ages. How could you possibly improve the combination of buttery crust and juicy fruit, other than to add almond paste! I was delighted to discover Shirley Corriher's Bakewise recently, and I've been looking forward to trying her Rustic Pear Tart. However, as usual, after reading the recipe over a few times, I decided I'm much too lazy to go through all that effort, when it seemed like I could just make the frangipane paste and add it to my trusty favorite Pear Galette (adapted from Baker's Dozen). Well, here's what happened.


First, I discovered much too late in the process (past the point of no return) that my pears weren't ripe! I decided to cut them extra thin and add extra sugar to make up for it. See how dry and hard they look:

Next, I realized that it didn't make sense to put the flour/sugar mixture on the frangipane, so instead I tossed it with the pears (and used only half the usual amount, since the pears were so hard):

The frangipane was very sticky, and I had a hard time spreading a nice thin layer. I tried using a silicone spatula, a greased offset spatula, and greased fingers. In the end, slightly wet fingers worked best. Still, I didn't get it as thin as I wanted. I also used less than half the amount called for in Shirley's rustic pear tart recipe.

Because I was adding an extra layer of stuff, I decided to use less pear (2 instead of 3-4), to keep the galette from getting too thick.

Despite the generous dusting of sugar, the pears still came out quite dry. I wasn't entirely sure if the frangipane was cooked all the way through when it came out, but I didn't want to risk burning the crust, so out it came.

The result: Turns out the frangipane is waaaayyyy too sweet for me! Totally overpowers everything else. Can't really taste the butter in the crust or the pears on top. Also, although the hazelnut/almond mixture tastes good, I think I'd prefer an all-almond paste. I wonder how much better this would have been if the pears had actually been ripe. Or whether it would have baked out okay if I had piled on another pear. I'm happy to say that the crust still came out wonderfully - flaky, crispy, with just a little bit of bite.


Next time, I need to make sure to use ripe pears. Use all almonds, no hazelnuts. And cut the sugar down significantly.

Mesh tote bag

All I wanted was a simple sewing machine so that I could stop hemming pants by hand for me and my short family.  What I ended up with was a new (although simple) sewing machine, and 3 years of free monthly sewing classes!  My first class project was this mesh tote bag - perfect for a trip to the farmers market.  Next month's class is making decorative pillow cuffs, which I'm not too interested in, but maybe I'll go and make another mesh bag.  I think J would like one to carry his sand toys in, especially if it was red and had dump trucks on it!

Never buying granola again

Now that I know how easy it is to make at home!!  I've always had a hard time finding the perfect granola in the stores anyway.  I like mine chunky and crunchy, with lots of nuts, but no fruit.  Dried fruit is too hard and chewy, and most store bought granola is already too sweet, even without the fruit.  Now I can make my own granola with nothing but nuts, and as much (or little) sweetness as I want. Thanks, KY, for the inspiration!

First Batch (modified KY's recipe):
3 Tbs butter
1/3 c almonds
1/3 c pecans
1/3 c hazelnuts
1/4 c coconut
scant 1/2 c agave
1 tsp cinnamon
~1/2 c water
2.5 c rolled oats

Simmer all but last 2 ingredients in butter. Add water and oats, stir to coat evenly. Spread on baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for 3.5 hours.  Don't stir after it starts to clump.

This came out surprisingly good!  Crunchy and chunky, and not at all sweet.  The nuts were perfectly toasted.  It's darker than I expected.  Although the cinnamon smelled quite strong while baking, it doesn't taste strong in the final product. Next time: Increase agave to full 1/2 cup. Try adding 1/4 c cocoa powder. Don't forget the flaxmeal!  Try adding in other grains. Maybe chop the nuts.

before baking

after baking

Smoothie Surprise

Half eaten banana, leftover strawberry yogurt, apple from backyard, silken tofu, flax meal, handful of frozen grapes, homemade soymilk, ice. Weird mix of leftovers, but actually not bad.

Pear galette

Titanic Cake

Actually, it's caller Pimlico cake, and it's a bit like Boston cream pie. This slice was for the neighbors, but the custard is so soft, the cake just slid right off!

First tomato harvest

He can be taught!

Just taught R to hem his own pants, and he did a rather nice job. On the first leg. Saving the other leg for another night :)

Sun butter jelly sandwiches

Our new daycare is a nut free facility.  Being practically a fruitarian (eats fruits and nuts), I find this rather frustrating. To make things worse, it's the first time we've had to pack J's lunch everyday, and I was really hoping to get him on peanut butter jelly sandwiches, since he's so into nuts and peanut butter lately.  The daycare recommended trying sun butter, a peanut butter substitute made from sunflower seeds.  I'm not a huge fan, but so far, J seems to like it.  

2.5 Year Old Runs Errand

R's in the shower.  I just sat down on the toilet and started to pee when I realize I'm out of toilet paper.  J is running about and comes in to say hi, and suddenly I have a great idea.  I say to him, go tell BaBa that 'MaMa needs more toilet paper'.  By the time J gets over to the other bathroom, the shower is off, so I can hear the conversation, and imagine the confused look on J's face.  He says, 'need more paper' to which of course R says 'go ask MaMa for more paper.'  Poor J! So I start to yell 'BaBa! BaBa!' to get his attention and explain through the walls.  But he just continues, 'see, MaMa is calling for you, go ask MaMa for paper.'  J returns, defeated.  Then I hand him my empty toilet paper roll, and I say, give this to BaBa and tell him 'MaMa needs paper'.  He repeats the sentence back to me: MaMa needs paper.

And that does the trick!  J accomplishes his mission, and his parents are terribly proud of him and themselves for their clever communication.

Note to self

There's an SFO to Milbrae BART shuttle that looks just like the long term parking shuttle. Don't be fooled.