Saturday, July 30, 2011

Nutella time.


This morning I took on a little experiment.  I wanted to see if I could make my own “chocolate chips” from nutella, so I broke out the piping bag and got to work….here they are!


I was making nutella scones.  I know, I know – more scones?!?!  I promise, this is the last variation for a while….next time its back to regular recipes, and perhaps a restaurant review later this week (there’s a new place I’m checking out soon).

These were inspired by some friends of mine.  A local coffee shop sells them and apparently runs out frequently, so I thought I would make my friends their own batch.  The only issue was how to deal with the nutella.  Do you just mix it in the batter?  Do you put down a layer of batter, then a blob of nutella then more batter so it’s layered?  I wasn’t sure what to do….until I had what I thought was a moment of brilliance – freeze it!  If I could make my own chips then I could just stir them into the batter as you normally would.  It all seemed to be working well.  They froze into chips and I tossed them with the dry ingredients.  It was when I added the wet ingredients that my brilliant plan fell apart.  The chips instantly started melting, so what choice did I have but to just stir it all together.  I made sure not to overmix it as I thought it would be better to have streaks of nutella rather than it all being completely blended.

It ended up working out just fine.  The scones were as fluffy as always and the nutella flavor really came through.  Of course I made some icing for these too – just a quick glaze of powdered sugar, cocoa powder and some milk, and look – they look great and are quite delicious!  Perhaps I’ll start peddling my goods outside the coffee shop….my baked goods that is.­­­­  J




Adapted from Strawberry Scone recipe on Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

1 large egg
¼ cup vanilla yogurt
½ cup milk
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces


Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt and milk until blended; set aside.  In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Stir to blend.  Add the butter pieces to the bowl with the dry ingredients and cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender, until the largest butter pieces are the size of small peas.
Add the nutella chips to the flour mixture and toss to coat.  Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and gently fold together with a spatula until a sticky dough has formed and all ingredients are incorporated.  If necessary, add more milk 1 tablespoon at a time to hydrate the remaining dry ingredients.
Transfer the dough to a well floured work surface and pat into a disc about 7-8 inches in diameter.  Slice the disc into 8 wedges.  Or use your super convenient mini scone pan as I do and dole out the batter into 16 scones.
To bake, preheat the oven to 425˚ F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place the shaped scones on the prepared baking sheet and bake until lightly browned on top, about 15 minutes.  If using the mini scone pan, bake for about 10-12 minutes.  Let cool a few minutes before serving.  If adding glaze, wait until completely cooled before doing so.  Enjoy!!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Lemon Blueberry Scones


Pre-Glaze

I hope at least some of you made it out to the bake sale this morning – it was a gorgeous day for it, and thankfully my scones came out really well!  I thought nothing could beat the cinnamon ones, but wow – these lemon blueberry give them a tough run for first place.  They tasted so fresh and summery, perfect for a warm sunny day.

I got the recipe from another food blog I read regularly, Annie’s Eats- http://annies-eats.com/.  It was actually for strawberry scones which also sound amazing, but I was worried they’d get soggy sitting out in the sun.  I followed her recipe and just swapped out blueberries for the strawberries.  I also added a lemon glaze, because really, what isn’t better with a sugary glaze?!

Now, time to start thinking about what I’ll enter in the baking contest this year…I need something new and creative.  Ideas??

Post-Glaze

Packed and ready for the sale!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Scones for Sale!


I must be feeling super generous this month.  I got an email the other day about the DC State Fair (remember that cupcake contest I entered and, well...lost, last year??).  The organizers are holding a bake sale to raise funds.  The Fair isn't for another couple months, but they are starting to prep for it already!  They asked for people to donate baked goods to sell this coming Sunday and of course I volunteered.  I'll be making a couple batches of scones...a new flavor this time - duhn, duhn, duhhhhhhhn - to be revealed in a few days along with pictures and recipe!

In the meantime, mark your calendar for Sunday and make sure to buy at least one of my goodies - you won't be disappointed, I promise (That's What She Said)!!


Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Road Cookies Really Hit The Road.....



I haven’t been baking as much as I used to and I miss it!  It’s difficult to get an office full of ladies to eat a ton of baked goods on a regular basis and I certainly can’t have everything hanging around my place.  But, I wanted to get back to it, it’s a release for me – and honestly, once you’ve had a taste of my baking, oh yeah….it’s on!  J

I saw on Facebook that one of my friends was part of something called Operation Baking GALS, a community organization that sends baked goods to troops overseas.  Perfect!  I get to bake up a storm and ship them off so I’m not sitting on the couch eating them myself, while doing something good for someone else….I signed up right away.

There aren’t really any rules about what you can or can’t bake, which is great, it will allow me some creativity, but for the first round, I wanted to make something that would rope people in and have them remember my name….hence, the road cookies (see post from Sept. 2010).  Get ready fellas, you’re not going to know what hit you when you get these!

Here goes the first package, off to Afghanistan......