fruit

Savoury strawberry salad: More awesome than alliteration!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I could not get out of bed fast enough on Saturday – it was strawberry day! And maybe I was a little too excited, because it was only the first day of the u-pick season, and there were frustrating turns of events. It all worked out in the end but the berry farm we meant to go to, Krause Berry Farms? Apparently that’s where everyone goes because they have pie and there were more cars parked there than I’d seen in a long time and three people told us we probably wouldn’t get any berries because all the ripe ones were gone. But just across the street, there was a berry farm and almost no cars, and lots and lots of berries. You win, other berry farm.

Grace, Corinne, and I set out among the rows to pluck berries, only mildly irritated that we’d have been wiser to wait a week, and collected as many berries as we could.

I ended up buying some, because we got whole buckets but decided to quit there because the day had not met our expectations of magic and grandeur, which actually happens less than you’d think. It’s possible that we’re easily pleased.

And then we went home, because some of us had jams and ice creams to make.

But before that, I desperately wanted a salad. Caprese-inspired, I wanted a heap of strawberries and burrata and basil and pepper and oil, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Use burrata cheese if you can find it, or if you’ve got the time and inclination to make it. If not, use the freshest softest mozzarella you can find. This is another case where I don’t have a recipe for you, but a list of ingredients, and you can play with it until it’s to your liking, or until you have enough to serve everyone who’s eating with you.

Strawberry salad

  • Fresh, local strawberries (room temperature)
  • Burrata or fresh mozzarella
  • Basil, cut into thin strips (chiffonade)
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar (a splash)
  • Salt, if needed, and to taste

Chop everything choppable. Assemble on a plate. Sprinkle with pepper, and drizzle oil and vinegar to taste. Serve.

I love using fruit in savoury applications, because it’s not as desserty as you’d think. Strawberries can substitute nicely for sweet summer tomatoes, especially since they mimic the meaty texture of tomatoes, and because they’re as tart as they are sweet and play so nicely with the creamy cheese and citrusy basil. Try this dish with peaches, or nectarines, or plums later in the season. I promise, it will not be weird, and you will love it forever. I wouldn’t raise and then dash your expectations of magic and grandeur on purpose.

Basil lemonade: Perfect for sunny patches, summer picnics, and chilled bottles of vodka.

~ wellfedemily ~ 8 Comments

It’s the weekend! Fantastic. And it’s sunny, which is making my headache and massive to-do list seem less like factors that could screw up my whole day … perhaps the sun will be to blame for a whole day of doing nothing, perhaps with a magazine, perhaps on the beach. Fortunately, the lemonade is ready to go, and my bike tires aren’t as flat as I thought. To the water!

Basil lemonade

  • 3/4 cup water
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 5 large basil leaves
  • 1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (about four ripe lemons)
  • 1/2 juiced lemon, quartered

Juice lemons. Cut half of one lemon into quarters.

Over high heat in a heavy-bottomed pot, heat sugar, water, basil leaves, and quartered lemon-half until sugar has dissolved. Let stand five minutes, pour into a bowl or large measuring cup, and chill up to four hours.

Pour lemon juice into a pitcher, and strain sugar-water-basil mixture into the pitcher as well. Stir, and add three to four cups of cold water, to taste. Alternately, you could use sparkling water for fizz.

Serve chilled, with basil leaves to garnish. Is improved greatly by a generous splash of vodka and a patch of sunshine to sip it in.

Rhubarb cobbler.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

My long-lost friend Vanessa came over the other night, long-lost because she has just re-emerged from a self-imposed thesis-writing hermitage, and we had dinner and rhubarb cobbler and talked about books and our mutual love for Lady Gaga. I have been missing women lately, because the ones I know are absurd and hilarious and we’ve all reached that boring age at which “work” and “Costco” all too often rank higher on our lists of priorities than does “witty banter” and “drinking too much on a Monday.” Well, that’s not true. Work and Costco are rarely priorities of mine, but I have so many bills and we always seem to be low on toilet paper. But you know. You know?

It’s hard to justify complaining, though, and there are far worse things happening in the world than my bad mood. And while I am crabby this week, I did find that baking and witty female company made things a little better. Here’s a recipe that you can use if you need to feel better, or to serve the smart, funny someone you’ve been missing, or to the one that’s still around because she has the good sense to not to leave you alone too long. It’s a plain old cobbler recipe made spiffy with a few unexpected flavours – rhubarb and rosemary and lemon zest. All good things, and don’t forget the ice cream.

Rhubarb cobbler

Cobbler:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp. lemon zest
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Filling:

  • 3 cups chopped rhubarb (slices should be no more than 1/4-inch thick)
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp. lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
  • 1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Grease a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish with butter, and into it toss rhubarb, sugar, lemon juice, rosemary, and salt. Stir to coat rhubarb.

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, and salt. Add butter, mixing until dry ingredients begin to form crumbs, then stir in milk and the egg. Stir until dry ingredients are just moistened.

Using a spoon or your fingers, pluck golf-ball-size rounds from the bowl and place on top of rhubarb, one ball at a time, until there is no dough left in the bowl and the rhubarb is mostly covered. You can smooth it down if you want, but I never bother. “Rustic” means that it looks homey and didn’t require fussing.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the top is golden and the rhubarb mixture bubbles around the sides. Let cool 10 minutes, then serve warm, with ice cream. I forgot the ice cream, and really noticed the lack of it.

The rosemary in this is what makes the whole thing magic. It might seem bizarre, but it totally works – I learned about it from Grace, and it rates as highly on the list of things I learned as the time I figured out how to multiply nines. Please do try it – there’s still rhubarb growing, as the season got off to a rocky start and it’s just beginning to really thrive. And be sure to demand company – you can ask her to pick up ice cream on the way. French vanilla is preferable.

A little trip requires a lot of cleaning and I prefer baking so I made cookies and the apartment is still gross. But carrots! Cookies! Carrot cookies!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Tremendous news – we’re going on vacation! A short one, but it counts because there are planes involved (several … which is only glamourous if I don’t tell you that we have layovers … on a trip from Vancouver to San Francisco) and because we are staying in hotel rooms and not tents. I all-caps HATE tents. At the first sight of springtime sun, Nick gets all goobery-eyed at the idea of driving to the middle of nowhere and sleeping in a tent we borrow from one of our sets of parents, and subsisting on hot dogs and box-wine while sitting in busted folding chairs for four days. Which? I’ll pass on, thanksverymuch. The last time we went camping we ended up parked beside the highway and Nick fell asleep under a van in nothing but his underpants and running shoes, and at that point I didn’t even care if he got eaten by bears. We weren’t married yet, so I didn’t have a lot invested in his NOT being eaten by wildlife, and that weekend he had it coming.

But the important thing is not that Nick and I are charmingly, recklessly dysfunctional, or that since it’s my blog I can make him look like the irresponsible one and you have only my word to go on. No. The important thing is that we (me, Nick, and Paul) are going to San Francisco. And also Las Vegas. Because my friend Theresa is flying in from Australia with her boyfriend, and we’re going to have the most fun ever.

And I’ve digressed again, because this isn’t a post to brag to you about my exciting, margarita-filled journey or my tumultuous, margarita-filled marriage. I’m really here to talk to you about cookies, because I thought it would probably be wise to clean out the fridge before we go, and I always get so distracted doing that. Out came the carrots and a lime, and I thought about how nice cardamom would be with all of that, and before I knew it, the butter was unwrapped and the oven was preheating and I’d forgotten why I’d opened the fridge door in the first place.

So these are carrot cookies, but because I was procrastinating, they’re different from your typical carrot cookies. The carrots are not grated as if you were making carrot cake; they’re puréed. The cookies are soft, so fluffy – like little cookie cakes, or sweet tiny scones. I’m going to eat twelve of them with tea for breakfast. There are no awful raisins crammed in, and the spices aren’t autumnal either. Not a whiff of cinnamon in the batch. And forget about cloves! These are carrot cookies for the bunny rabbits – all spring and POP! and there is no way I’m sweeping the kitchen floor tonight.

Carrot cookies

(Makes about 24 cookies.)

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
  • 1 lb. carrots, cooked and puréed (you should end up with 1 cup of purée)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. lime zest
  • 1 tsp. lime juice
  • 1 tsp. cardamom
  • 1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add carrot, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and mix well. Beat in eggs, vanilla, lime zest, lime juice, and cardamon.

Stir flour mixture into carrot mixture and beat until thoroughly combined. What you will end up with will look like a thick cake batter and a very moist and sticky cookie dough. Place in fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Roll chilled dough into one-inch balls, dropping and rolling each ball in sugar. Place each ball on a buttered cookie sheet, about an inch apart, and press with the tines of a fork. Repeat, 12 to 24 times.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned. I’d say golden, but these are already orange. I wish I could show you how orange.

Eat as many as you can hot from the oven. Or, cool on a wire rack, and store in a sealed container.

If, like me, you ate a kilo of Mini Eggs this weekend, a little bit of stewed rhubarb is probably exactly what you need.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

You see that terrible disaster? It’s the first thing on my to-do list this week, and I’m a little overwhelmed. We’ve just had a three-day weekend of constant going and doing, and I don’t even recall cooking anything, and somehow, this is the aftermath. Even the cat is tired and doesn’t want to do anything.

This week and the early part of next week will be very busy, as I’ll be back to work next Thursday. Hooray! I have enjoyed unemployment (my four-week paid vacation), but it’s going to be great to be back. And back better than ever, as I’m moving on up to something a little different, a little more challenging, and likely with my own office to fill up with pictures of my cat. It’s very exciting. Nick is glad I will continue to earn an income, and I am glad that obligation will force me to brush my hair and shower, and to get out of bed before 10:00.

Best to ease into the day (and the week) slowly, I think. Stewed rhubarb with a little bit of local honey should do the trick – warm, tart, and like sweet porridge, it’s comfort in a bowl. This recipe makes about two cups’ worth, and is very good poured over oatmeal, if you prefer actual porridge, or over ice cream, which I don’t mind if you have for breakfast.

I prefer to stew greener rhubarb, as often it’s almost too sour to do anything else with. Red rhubarb has greater possibilities, which I am sure we’ll get into later. Stewed rhubarb is a very good start though, and you can make it all through rhubarb season using apples as I’ve done here for the early part of the season, or summer berries as the season continues. Strawberries are the obvious choice later in the season, but blueberries can be used as well, to great effect. This is also a recipe that Miss Rosa can adapt to the GI Diet, and the restrictions therein.

Stewed rhubarb

(Makes one to two servings, however the recipe is easily multiplied.)

  • 1 lb. rhubarb, cut into 1/4 inch slices
  • 1/2 lb. apples, finely chopped
  • Honey, to taste

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine rhubarb and apples with 1/4 cup of water. Stir occasionally to ensure fruit doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan, until rhubarb and apple have disintegrated and the mixture resembles pink applesauce, 15 to 20 minutes. Sweeten with honey to taste, and serve warm.

Blood orange cookie bars.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

I love blood oranges so much. It’s not just their deep red flesh – they taste like a mash of oranges and raspberries, at least to me, and they peel easily and they aren’t so bitter that you can’t eat eight of them in one sitting if you wanted to, and I want to, most of the time.

When I was a kid, my mom used to make lemon slice – lemon custard baked onto a shortbread cookie crust. I think everyone’s mom made it – it was the kind of thing you’d have at open houses, grown-up birthday parties, or on Sundays. I’ve made them with limes, and the result was delicious, and with oranges. I wonder about grapefruit – I bet grapefruit cookie bars would be pretty interesting. Today, we have blood oranges, because to be honest when it’s blood orange season we always have more than we can peel and eat on hand anyway. I hope you like these. They’re like mom would make – especially since they’re adapted from a recipe I swiped borrowed from her tattered kitchen binder. But prettier, because they’re pink.

Blood orange cookie bars

Shortbread crust:

  • 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • Zest of one blood orange
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

Custard:

  • Zest of one blood orange
  • 4 tbsp. blood orange juice
  • 1 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 2 to 3 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Cream together the butter, sugar, and zest to make your crust. Stir in flour until a crumbly dough forms, and then press it into a 9″x9″ square baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes, until the edges have browned and it smells like cookies. Remove from oven and cool in the pan on a rack, about 20 minutes.

Whisk together your zest, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, flour, and salt. Pour over crust. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly golden around the edges, dry on the surface, and pretty much firm in the centre when tilted slightly.

Cool, again in the pan, on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and cut into slices. Serve with tea. Or, if you had a crappy work week and it’s over now, serve with a glass of sparkling wine with just a squish of blood orange for colour.

A little bit of lemon on a weeknight.

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

I’ll be honest, this one doesn’t come from me. However, it has lived in my head for so long that I’m not sure where it comes from, though more than likely it comes from Fannie Farmer. You probably make something very similar, and if you don’t, your mom or grandmother probably did. Because it’s delicious, I think it bears repeating.

I made Alana’s ricotta again today – I’ve been making it a lot, and have found multiple uses for both the curds and the whey. I’ve been making it with those two-litre containers of homogenized milk, which has meant I’ve had at least a pound of ricotta and quite a lot of whey leftover for somewhere around $2.38, which is easily more than a pound of ricotta costs. And you know, the thing about whey? It subs in very nicely for buttermilk.

I’ve used it today, in my lemon buttermilk pudding cake, and it’s very nice. If you don’t have whey or buttermilk, you can use regular milk, and it will just be lemon pudding cake, which is plenty delicious and probably where the whole thing started.

This pudding cake is part of a long family tradition of pudding cakes, which includes stewed fruit and dumplings and my grandpa’s Radio Pudding. It’s magic, because it starts off as a very runny batter, which transforms into a pudding with a delicate sponge cake top once baked. Sound familiar? It’s the perfect dessert for company on a weeknight, its purpose this evening, because it’s easy, and uses just a handful of ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry and fridge. You can substitute limes, or oranges, if that’s what you have, and it will be different but also lovely. I bet it would look very pretty if you made it with blood oranges.

Lemon buttermilk pudding cake

  • 1 cup granulated sugar (1/4 cup reserved)
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • Zest of one lemon
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or whey, or regular old milk)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole or baking dish, such as a soufflé dish or that Corningware dish that looks like a giant ramekin, or a 8-inch square baking pan. (Keep in mind that the deeper your baking pan, the runnier your result. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but deeper means more to have to set up, you know?)

Combine three-quarters of the sugar, flour, and lemon zest in a mixing bowl, and whisk well. Add the melted butter, lemon juice, and egg yolks, and whisk to form a batter. Slowly add in buttermilk (or whatehaveyou), whisking as you go.

In a separate bowl, whisk remaining sugar with the egg whites until the egg whites form soft peaks. You want them to be sturdy but malleable – if you overdo it, they get to a point where you can almost “chunk” pieces off. It won’t be the end of the world if that happens, but try not to get to there.

Fold egg whites into sugar-flour-buttermilk mixture. Pour into your prepared dish.

Place the dish into a larger baking pan, and fill the outside pan with water until the water comes to halfway up the side of the dish.

Place carefully into the oven, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is cake-like and lightly browned. Cool for at least 30 minutes before diving in.

Serve warm, with whipped cream. Possibly be transported back to your grandmother’s messy kitchen table, as many years ago as that was. This tastes like lemon slice, lemon meringue pie (sans meringue), and all those treats most of us rarely make anymore.

Tangelo Tart: Not just an amazing stripper name.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Okay, so, I’ve been trying to mostly eat locally and sustainably and good crap like that, at least as far as meat and produce are concerned, but sometimes the city kicks my ass and the clouds are so dark and dense that I’m all, “ALL I WANT IS AN ORANGE IN MY MOUTH!” Already the Olympics are starting to make my neighbourhood really annoying, and no one has seen the sun for days. Wouldn’t you want a tangelo? Me too, and so I tumble off my high horse and tear savagely into as many tangelos as I can get my hands on at once.

And it’s worth it.

In addition to juicing them, and gnashing at their flesh with my menacing fruit fangs, I also turned them into a gooey orange tart, which was shared with Nick and Paul and Grace at Grace’s dinner party last night. I am literally still full after Grace’s succulent roast leg of lamb, buttery lemon potatoes, and creamy spinach and gailan gratin. But since my only contribution to the night was a bottle of Riesling and the tart, I am going to tell you about that. One day perhaps Grace will guest post. I will work on that.

So here you are: Tangelo Tart.

Tangelo tart

Crust

  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup ground almonds
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup flour

Custard

  • 3 large eggs, plus 3 additional egg yolks
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp. tangelo zest
  • 1/2 cup fresh tangelo juice
  • 2 tsp. lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup butter, cubed and chilled

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, cream together butter, almonds, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, and beat until thoroughly combined.

Add flour, and stir until a crumbly dough forms. Press dough into a 9″ tart pan. Line the crust with a piece of parchment weighted with pie weights or dried beans.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Remove from heat to a wire rack to cool.

Check your large bowls against your pot tops. Find one that fits nicely.

Into that fitting bowl, whisk eggs, yolks, sugar, zest, and juice. Place bowl over a pot of simmering water, and whisk, almost continuously, until mixture has thickened. At first, the mix will seem frothy, as if there is a layer of foam atop a layer of juice, but don’t worry. Your constant attention will ensure that the bottom layer joins the top layer in yellow creaminess. You’ll know it’s done when the mix is of a uniform thickness and texture, and when it coats the back of a spoon.

Remove the bowl from the heat, and whisk in butter, one cube at a time, until the butter has melted into the mix. Pour into a different bowl, cover with plastic wrap (make sure the wrap covers the surface of the custard or else a skin will form and it will look gross). Refrigerate until cooled.

Pour cooled custard into cooled pie crust. At this point, you will notice that you might have made too much custard, and you may find this annoying. But there’s a reason. Turn oven to broil.

You see? This is where it gets tricky, especially if you are easily distracted.

Place tart in oven under broiler, and allow top to brown slightly.

Operative word: SLIGHTLY. You want it to be a marbley kind of goldenness, not unlike creme brulée. If you get distracted and singe the top of the tart, the extra filling will come in handy as you scrape off the ugly bits and try again. It did for me. If you’re not a broiler failure, save the extra custard and either drizzle it over the whipped cream you’ll serve with the tart, or store it in a ramekin and eat it on your own later. There should be about one cup extra.

Chill tart for four hours before serving. Serve with whipped cream. Sigh heavily over its punchy fruitiness, its ooey-gooeyness, its “I can’t believe it’s not August” splendor.

These are a few of my favourite things.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

It’s persimmon season. Did you know that? Have you ever tasted a persimmon? They look like orange tomatoes with floppy hats and they’re almost too sweet to eat. Fortunately, it’s also cranberry season.

I would have offered you a recipe for cranberry sauce with persimmons, but, to be honest, I’ve noticed that everyone’s own recipe for cranberry sauce is the best and I am sure my own mother would chime in here with reasons why I’ve done it wrong. Cranberry sauce is cranberry sauce, so just do what you’ve always done and it will be marvelous, even if all you do is open a can and plonk the stuff onto a plate, can-rings and all. But chutney.

Chutney is something else. It’s far more versatile, and the reason I like it better is that it’s something you can eat with cheese. In these chilly, early-winter months, I like nothing more some nights than to put on a holiday movie and eat a loaf of bread and a bit of very good cheese with warm chutney. A fresh bottle of Beaujolais doesn’t hurt either.

Chutney is sweet and savoury, and goes well with meats and cheeses and fishes, and it’s a lovely colour and a great gift item. People don’t make it like they make jam, so it’s a nice thing to offer as a hostess gift, or to give to someone you quite like. Or, you can make a whole bunch of it and just keep it all for yourself, and that’s fine too. It’s not greedy.

This is my chutney recipe, and it makes somewhere around a ton of the stuff (actual amount: about five cups), but I can it. You don’t have to do that, if you don’t want – just make a little bit and stash it in the fridge if all you want is enough for you. But the ingredients are cheap, especially if you received a bag of glowing orange persimmons from your boss, who received them as a gift from someone’s garden somewhere close by. Even if you didn’t, persimmons are very reasonable. And use rosemary. It’s a December herb – you can even buy it now, tied up like little Christmas trees, each sprig like an exaggerated branch of pine.

Anyway. Chutney.

Cranberry persimmon chutney

(Makes about five cups.)

  • 1 1/2 lbs. diced persimmons
  • 1 lb. fresh cranberries
  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. orange zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (from one large navel orange)
  • 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (Ooh – or dry red wine!)
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

If you want to can this stuff, use the procedure for shorter time processing at Epicurious. Okay. Good.

So. Heat up your olive oil on high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Stir in your cranberries and persimmons, and reduce to medium. Add orange zest, juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 40 to 45 minutes, until berries have popped, persimmons have turned to mush, and the whole mixture resembles a loose cranberry sauce. It should not be smooth, however. Nobody ever liked a smooth chutney.

Stir in rosemary, and check your seasonings. I added more pepper, because I like it, and a pinch more salt. You can do whatever you like.

Taste. It’s good, right? I know.

Simmer for five to ten minutes, and then spoon into jars. If not canning using high heat, seal them tightly and throw them in the fridge. If canning, process as usual.

Serve with very good, very creamy cheese. This is a tart, sweet, herbacious thing, and you may be unsure about the combinations at first read, but I promise that once you plop this stuff onto a crusty piece of bread with all that very good cheese (I’m thinking something strong, like Roquefort or Gorgonzola, or something creamy, like Camembert), you’ll see what I mean when I say that this is one of my favourite things, made from a few of my favourite things.

Also, I’m sorry. I’m having a hell of a time trying to upload images, so there aren’t as many pictures this time as I’d have liked. It’s still two weeks until someone comes to install the cables that’ll give us proper Internet. I’m doing what I can with stolen signals. Anyway. Time to go buy some cheese. This chutney’s not going to eat itself, you know.

Cranberry scones, and good morning to you!

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Can you believe we’re a month away from Christmas? I can’t believe how long it’s been since I thought about tomatoes. I’m thinking about cranberries these days, and maple syrup and shortbread cookies and root vegetables and squash and foggy-skinned red local apples. American Thanksgiving is this week. I keep seeing commercials for Black Friday, hearing Christmas music in every little store I duck into, and finding egg nog and candy cane ice cream on grocery shelves where neither was before.

You may wake up early this week with a to-do list to fit the season and a hankering for something warm, and when you do, could I recommend scones? Cranberry scones, with maple syrup and brown sugar. Not too sweet, and very nice with a hot cup of tea.

Cranberry scones

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup chilled whole milk
  • 2 tbsp. maple syrup
  • 1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Combine the flour,  sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Squeeze the butter between your fingers, as if you were making pie crust. I seem to say this a lot. Maybe I talk too much about baked goods? You don’t want to crumble the butter into nothing – think of peas scattered among crumbs.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, and add the milk and the maple syrup and the cranberries. Stir the liquid into the butter-flour mix, and press gently to form a dough. When the dough is a single mass that holds together well, turn it out onto a floured surface, and cut into four equal pieces. Form rounds of each quarter, and cut each quarter further into four pieces, making sixteen scones in total.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15 to 18 minutes, until puffed and golden. Cool on a wire rack, but eat warm, slathered in butter and drizzled with a bit of maple syrup. Good morning, and happy holidays!