Crumpets!

Last week, I made my way over to the shuk for some fruits and vegetables. I haven't been there in ages but somehow, despite all the time that has passed, being there felt like coming home. The sights, sounds and smells, everything I love about Israel captured in once place. Home. While I was there, my eye caught sight of some rhubarb! It turns out to be rhubarb season here. It has a pretty short season here so Im glad I got out of the army just in time for it. Obviously, I picked up a bunch of it. (Luckily, strawberries are in season also so I picked up some of those.. More on what I did with them later..) When I got home, my thoughts immediately went in a million different directions but I knew for sure I wanted to make rhubarb jam. So I did, using a very simple recipe. Once I had the jam, I thought, well what am I going to smear it on?! Having no bread to make toast from I thought of whipping something up from scratch. Crumpets was my first thought (and an appropriate nod to my good friend A who just got engaged to a Brit) so I went about finding a recipe. Crumpets are that classic British tea time staple that are similar to what we know as English muffins. I chose Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe and set to work. Overall, these were simple to make and delicious to eat but my technique with the rings and the measuring was a bit amateurish. Oh well, there's always the next batch of jam.

Lemon Poppy Scones

My morning stash of breakfast muffins is finished! Alright, they lasted over three weeks, but still! In need of a new breakfast item, I decided to make scones, both because I haven't made a batch in ages and because I love everything about them. I love their triangular shape, their craggy, coarse, crumbly consistency, their Scottish heritage, their versatility. Take any basic scone recipe, drop in some add-ins and flavorings and you have a scone wonderfully tailored to your personal taste. The batch of scones I made was lemon-poppy. Inspired by my lemon-poppy cake, I added some zest and extract and two tablespoons of poppy seeds to KAF's basic scone recipe. I know this is a classic combination, but I must say, it's delicious! And it tastes exactly like the cake in this form. Somehow the tartness of the lemon is rendered delicate and mellow by the addition of dairy. It's heavenly. I also love the visual pop that the poppy seeds add. For this recipe, I used milk and a combination of margarine and shortening. Take care to make sure everything is cold and that the dough is cold as well before going into the oven or else risk having a melting bubbly mess in the oven. Even if this does happen, I can assure you they'll still be delicious. Scones are best eaten fresh but I stashed the lot of them in the freezer to pull out as needed.

Lemon Poppy Scones

adapted from KAF Baker's Companion

3 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

2 tbsp poppy seeds

1 tbsp lemon zest

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 cup milk or buttermilk

8 tbsp cold margarine, or a combo of margarine and shortening

Preheat the oven to 450. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

Place all of the dry ingredients in a bowl,

and whisk until combined.Add in the fat. I grated in my margarine, so it looks kinda cool.

Rub it in with your fingers or a pastry blender until coarse crumbs are formed. Don't go too far, you want nice flaky scones.Place the liquid ingredients in measuring cup,
and mix to combine.
Pour this over the dry ingredients,
and using a spatula fold the ingredients together until almost all of the flour is completely moistened. Take care not to over mix. If this mixture isnt cold, chill it.
Divide the dough into two equal portions.
Pat into circles.
Cut each circle into eight wedges. My dough was too warm and soft for them to separate, but they separated after the baking.
Bake until theyre light golden and have puffed up about ten-thirteen minutes.
Break them up and set on a wire rack to cool!

Barley Scones

I'm moving. After two years of living in the dorms on campus, I'm finally moving to Jerusalem. I'm going to be a madricha (literally a counselor) in a girl's learning program. I'm reallly really excited but nervous at the same time. I think it's going to be a great experience and opportunity and I'm looking forward to being able to contribute something significant finally. All this means a. I won't be able to bake next year-- devastating- because they don't have a kitchen, they have catered meals, and b. I have to empty my pantry as much as I can. Which brings me to these Barley Scones. I've had a bag of barley flour in my pantry for ages and I finally decided to use it. I used it first for Barley Pancakes, which I'll tell you about one of these days and then for these Barley Scones, which I crazily adapted from the KAF Whole Grain Baking Book and will now call my own :). These scones were easy to put together and very sweet and mild tasting. They're pretty basic and plain, so you can add any flavorings you want- but they are yummy! And whole grain. I will say that in the end, these did turn out more like muffin tops and I think I know why. Because of the intense heat here in the area and in the kitchen, the fat melted pretty much before they got into the oven, so they didn't create the traditional flakes of scones. Next time, I'll try again it better conditions, but for now, these scone/muffins were perfect.

My Basic Barley Scones

2 cups whole barley flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment. In a bowl, place all the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine,Place the fat on top of the flour,and rub it in with your fingers until coarse crumbs are created. Set aside.In a measuring cup, place all the wet ingredients,and whisk to combine. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, and stir just until combined. Scoop with a muffin scoop onto the baking sheet, (in my kitchen they were too wet from the moisture to cut) and bake until golden brown. My oven cooks ridiculously fast, so I can't time it. Remove from the oven and cool. Enjoy with butter or jam or just plain. Let me know about your scone experiments!

Cranberry Scones

There were a bunch of factors involved in the decision to make these scones. One was the fact that I've been craving the flaky, crumbly, not too sweet goodness that is scones for quite some time now. Second is the two bags of fresh cranberries that I picked up from my local grocery. I didn't know that I'd actually use them but I saw them for the first time and so grabbed a couple of bags. Who would resist that? I immediately stashed them in the freezer for someone else to use. I remembered seeing a recipe for Cranberry Scones in A Passion for Baking, the only all-purpose baking book I have with me until I return to Israel next week-- can't wait!!! These were a breeze to put together, replacing milk for the cream. Shaves some calories and besides, cream isn't always on hand for impulse baking. Other than that, the recipe was quite simple to put together. The dough was a bit tricky to handle, so in the beginning I cut circles out but when that failed I resorted to a cookie scoop to scoop the rest. I quite like the result... a bit lumpy, a bit craggy looking... just like I remember. Did I mention I burned a couple? Yea. So those ended up in the trash but the rest were really good. I didn't realize just how tart fresh cranberries are-- I was a cranberry virgin before, and they really are eye squintingly tart. The baking made them less tart in a soft, pleasing manner. However, I did find that the cranberries that stick out of the top remained tart, so be wary. These would be great with some jam.. I'm not a fan of butter, for breakfast. I hope to make more scones soon. So little effort, but so worth the end result.

Cranberry Scones

adapted from A Passion for Baking

3 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

3/4 cup butter or margarine cut into chunks

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/3- 1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cups frozen cranberries, chopped

Ruby red jewels. So pretty!

Place the dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk to combine.

Add your desired fat,

and rub in the pieces as if you were making pie crust.

Add the eggs, vanilla, and milk, and stir until a wet dough is formed.

In come the cranberries!

Fold into the batter; the berries tint it a nice pink.

I started cutting out the dough... but then resorted to the cookie/muffin scoop method which I like better.

You can tell which scones were formed using which method. Here they are ready to bake.

Preheat your oven to 425.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes until they are golden. Be careful not to overbake..