Buttermilk scones for breakfast



Brown-sugar topped buttermilk scones by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 I've made some lovely scones lately, blueberry- and raspberry-filled gems, luscious apricot pastries, another version with ginger and pineapple. These sweet biscuits are always appreciated around my house, but there are times when I don't need 16 buttery treats sitting on my counter, waiting for someone to devour them. This is why I developed the buttermilk scone half recipe, using less than one stick of butter and creating just enough pastries for my family to enjoy and maybe a few to bring to work. This version also takes about half as much time to assemble, so it's easier than ever to whip these up for breakfast.

Here's the recipe and if using fruit, be sure to follow the step-by-step folding technique in the Blueberry Lemon Buttermilk Scone post.

Buttermilk scones ready for the oven by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Buttermilk Scones Half Recipe


Yield: 8 scones
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 (6 tablespoons) stick unsalted butter, chilled or frozen

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk (whole if you can find it)

1. In a batter bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Using a regular grater, shred the cold butter and lightly mix the shavings into the dry ingredients. Using your hands and a gentle, quick touch, make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture.

2. Pour in the buttermilk and stir gently with either a wooden spoon or my instrument of choice, a silicone spatula. If mixture seems dry, add additional buttermilk until a cohesive dough forms. The dough should be slightly wet and sticky, but not overly so.

3. On a floured countertop, press dough into a rough rectangle and if using fruit, follow shaping instructions here. Cut into 8 triangles. Place scones on a lined baking sheet. The scones can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 24 hours.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Carefully brush each wedge with buttermilk or cream and sprinkle sugar over the top. Bake at 400 for at least 15 minutes. They may need a bit more time, depending on your oven, convection, etc. Scones are ready when they are golden brown on top and bounce back when touched lightly in the center.

Adventures in scone-making: Cream cheese apricot scones

Cream cheese apricot scones by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

On this fifth day of July, I'll celebrate our great country and the English language by creating a new word: scone-making. Probably not that earth-shattering a notion, but scone-making has taken up a fair bit of my baking time lately. It all started with a refinement of my everyday buttermilk scones, which have been gussied-up with fresh blueberries and raspberries.

As I've shared my scone-making adventures, I've discovered that not everyone in my world knows about scones. Which is completely understandable, because here in Georgia, we're smack-dab in the middle of biscuit country. And that's not biscuit as code for "cookie," either. Fluffy, feathery Crisco-and-White Lily goodness - with a bit of friend chicken breast or a sausage patty or pork tenderloin, a satisfying breakfast. Scones are kissing cousins to the Southern biscuit - buttery, sweet relatives that come to the table for breakfast or tea.

Scones are like sweet biscuits - a touch of sugar, and a lot of butter for a tender pastry that's superlative filled with fresh fruit in the summer or split and slathered with preserves in the cooler months. I make them for breakfast, or brunch if I get a late start. Scones can be an afterschool snack, or if supper's late, a teatime treat to tide you over.

Cream cheese apricot scones by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Cream Cheese Apricot Scones

Yield: 16 scones


3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (8 ounce) package 1/3 less fat (Neufchatel) cream cheese

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 16 pieces

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup whole milk

1 cup diced, dried apricots

Demerara or sparkling sugar for garnish, optional


1. Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in cream cheese and then butter, using your fingers, two forks or a pastry cutter, until the butter and cream cheese are nuggets the size of peas.

3. In a separate container, whisk together the milk, egg and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently with a fork or spoon. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and following the step-by-step technique for forming the Blueberry Lemon Buttermilk Scones, pat the dough into a 12 X 6 inch rectangle.
 
4. Spread the diced apricots over the rectangle and press the fruit into the dough. Fold the dough into thirds, letter-style. Press the dough into a 12 X 6 rectangle again and repeat the letter fold. Press the dough into a 12 X 6 rectangle for the final time and using a sharp knife or bench knife, cut dough into four equal rectangles. Divide each rectangle in half and each of those squares into triangles, yielding 16 triangle-shaped scones.
 
5. Place scones on baking sheet - it's ok to get them close together because if the dough and kitchen are fairly cool, the scones will puff up rather than spread. Brush each with reserved milk and sprinkle with sparkle or demerara sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for 18 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.
 
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour.

Dessert fit for a princess

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I’m surrounded by princesses. Decked out in plastic tiaras and shiny, synthetic ball gowns, my little girls are princesses to a T. Or is that tea? We occasionally have dress-up teas in our house – pulling out the china tea cups and plates, serving up a bit of cake or cookies, and tea. Filling up the sugar and creamer, because it doesn’t matter if the tea is already sweet, the primary point of a proper little girls’ tea being to stir sugar into liquid while wearing a fancy dress.


Celebrating the royal wedding this week, I confess to a fascination with the British royal family, beginning with Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 (isn’t it funny how it’s not called Prince Charles’ wedding?). I was a teenager, and missed the wedding because I was at summer camp in the mountains of Tennessee. To tell the truth, I didn’t see the full movie-length version of the wedding until just a few years ago, on a September weekend TV marathon memorializing Diana’s death. I still have the Life magazine with the pictures of the wedding - the coach, the dress, the tiara, the veil, the flower girls.


Maybe it's just me, but Diana's wedding dress is iconic. I saw it last year when  Diana: A Celebration came to Atlanta. The dress gets its own glass case, with the train fully extended and flower girl's dress alongside. Diana's dress seems so girly compared to the sleek wedding dresses of today. Her dress had those puffed and ruffled sleeves, the embroidered bodice and cascading skirt. My youngest daughter was four at the time, and still talks about seeing the princess' wedding dress. Here she is with her big sister demonstrating how to act like a princess under the gaze of Diana.

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Back at home, we take tea some days, and every now and then, I'll make Sticky Toffee Pudding, supposedly Kate’s favorite dessert. In the realm of English desserts, I’m more of a fan of bananas-and-cream banoffee, but sticky toffee is divine in its own way. Don’t let the name "pudding" throw you off – it’s just the British-ism for dessert. Sticky toffee pudding is a spicy date cake topped with a luscious caramel toffee sauce. I adapted a recipe from the Gourmet Cookbook to make individual puddings, using muffin cups, so the princesses don't have to share at teatime. It’s ugly when princesses squabble.

Sticky Toffee Pudding by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Sticky Toffee Puddings for Perfect Little Princesses


Yield: 18 muffin-style puddings


Pudding

2 cups (10 ounces) pitted dates

2 2/3 cup water

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

1 ¾ cups self-rising flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1. Combine dates and water in a 1-quart saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat. Let cool to room temperature.

2. Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400. Grease 18 muffin tins.

3. Beat butter and brown sugar in bowl with an electric mixer, until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, scraping down the bowl after each egg. Stir in vanilla, then flour.

4. Add baking soda to date mixture and process in food processor. The mixture will be very wet. Add to butter mixture and stir until combined. Divide batter into muffin tins, filling ¾ full.

5. Place muffin tins on baking sheet and bake 15 to 20 minutes, using the toothpick test – a toothpick (or a bamboo skewer) inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool puddings in tins for a few minutes, then turn out on a wire rack.


Toffee Sauce

½ cup sugar

7 tablespoons unsalted butter

6 oz. heavy cream


1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar and butter, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Gradually incorporate cream, using a whisk, until mixture is thick and creamy.

2. Serve toffee sauce over individual puddings.

Text & images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Time for tea, and lemon



Lemon Tea Loaves by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


I have a long-standing love for lemon, as witnessed by my recipes for Lemon Pound Cake and food-of-the-gods Lemon Pudding. When I was a little girl in pigtails, scooter skirts and Keds, I loved Sunshine lemon cookies, the kind with the powdered sugar that would leave white chalky sugar dust at the corners of my mouth. I would pull out my childhood tea set, a collection of mismatched "Made in Nippon" teacups and saucers, fill with tea and serve the cookies alongside.

Now, I'm all grown-up, completely over the pigtails and scooter skirts, (but still loving my Keds). To get my lemon fix, I sometimes bake this Lemon Tea Loaf, a rich, citrus-scented cake with a tart lemony glaze. If it's been awhile since you've used your wedding china, pull out a few cups and saucers, make a pot of Earl Grey and slice up this lovely cake. Invite a neighbor over to share the tea, then send them home with the second loaf. Or, be very strong and wrap both loaves up to give as gifts - a hostess gift on Easter or Mother's Day, or perhaps the upcoming end-of-school. Your lemon-loaving friends will be grateful.


Lemon Tea Loaf

Yield: 2 loaves

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened


2 cups sugar

4 eggs

Zest of 2 lemons

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

For glaze: ½ cup sugar dissolved in juice of 2 lemons

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans using baking spray or greasing with butter.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated. Add lemon rind. Sift together dry ingredients, then add alternately to the batter with milk. Pour batter into prepared baking pans.

3. Place pans in 350 oven and bake for 45 minutes. Bake until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks.

4. While cake is cooling, dissolve sugar in the juice of two lemons. Slowly pour glaze over cakes and let cool.

Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

A version of this story also appears on Examiner.com.

Heaven is a gingery pineapple scone for breakfast

I made these scones this morning, on a whim and a prayer. I intended to make apricot scones, but found only dried pineapple. Turns out, pineapple and ginger are a luscious scone combination. This recipe is limited only by the dried fruit in your pantry. What combination strikes your fancy? Cranberry and orange? Apricot and almond? Dried cherry and chocolate? Let me know in the comments. All reasonable requests will be honored.

Gingery Pineapple Scones

1/ 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional, but quite nice)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, and grated on the coarse side of a shredder

4 ounces dried pineapple, chopped

2 ounces crystallized ginger, chopped

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk (whole, if you can find it)

Extra buttermilk, or cream, for brushing the tops

Demerara or sparkle sugar, for tops

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Pour in the grated butter and using your fingers, smush until the butter is incorporated, forming coarse crumbs with some the size of peas. Add in dried pineapple and ginger.

3. In a mixing cup, stir together egg and buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and using a spatula, stir just until combined.

4. Lightly flour the counter and turn dough out. Shape into a an 8-inch round and use a knife to cut out 8 wedges. Place the wedges on the baking sheet. Brush with cream or buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar.

5. Bake in oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, let cool and serve warm.

Text and images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer.