Cranberry Scones

I made these mini scones for a breakfast at work the other day.  Scones have a bad reputation of being hard, dry, and really unappetizing.  Good scones are flaky and buttery.  They have heavy ingredients like butter and cream in them, but they shouldn't feel heavy.

The trick with these is to use really cold ingredients.  The butter, cream, buttermilk, and eggs should all be straight out of the fridge so they're as cold as possible.  And don't overknead the dough for these or you'll get hard bricks!

I had made the ginger lemon scones that were in the Flour cookbook, but I wanted to make something different this time so I just left out the ginger, added some dried cranberries  and did a lime glaze instead of a lemon one.  You can make these in any size that you want.  I have a set of different sized biscuit cutters, so I made these ones small since I was feeding a bunch of people at work.

Cranberry Scones with Lime Glaze
Adapted from Flour

For the scones:
2 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped into small pieces
14 tbsp cold butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup cold buttermilk
1/2 cup cold heavy cream
1 cold egg

For the glaze:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2-3 tbsp lime juice


Instructions:


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and cranberries until combined with paddle attachment of stand mixer.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, cream, and egg.  On low speed, pour into flour mixture and mix until just combined, 20-30 seconds.  It's ok if there's some flour in the bottom of the bowl.

4. Turn bowl over onto lightly floured counter surface.  Turn dough over lightly a few times until loose flour is combined.  Don't knead the dough hard, just press the flour in lightly.

5. Press the dough out until it's about 1 inch thick all around.  Use biscuit cutter (3 inch for regular size scones, 1 inch for mini bite size ones) to cut out scones.  Gather dough scrapes together and press out more until all the dough has been used.

6. Bake for 40-45 minutes for large scones, 15-20 minutes for small ones.  Bake until golden brown on top/edges.  Put on wire rack to cool.  Cool completely before putting the glaze on or it will just melt off the top.

7. Mix the confectioner's sugar and lime juice in a small bowl.  Drizzle glaze over tops of the scones.  Let the glaze solidify for a few minutes before eating.

Baked Potato Soup

We are currently getting slammed by not one, but two back-to-back snowstorms that are piling on another 12-18 inches on top of the feet of snow we already had.  It's crazy out there, our snowbanks are taller than we are.  I was playing queen of the mountain climbing up our snowbank by our house tonight just to shovel off the top so we can add more to it tomorrow.  Our dog doesn't know where to do her business when we go outside.  Our backyard is totally blocked off until spring at this point.  Weather like this always makes me want soup.  This soup is heavy, in a good stick-to-your-ribs kind of way.  A medium sized bowl of it with a piece of bread to mop it up is definitely filling enough for dinner.  Or a small cup of this with a salad would be perfect if you want to lighten things up a bit.

I listed crushed red pepper flakes in the recipe.  I like this soup with a little zip to it.  This time, I skipped this because I had habanero flavored cheddar cheese that was spicy enough on its own.  If you don't like spice, just leave the pepper flakes out.

I started making this soup from a recipe I found online but even from the first time I made it I adapted it heavily.  Now it doesn't really even resemble the original recipe enough to credit it.  This time I added some chopped up bacon bits and scallion to it as well which I haven't done in the past but I think they're both good additions.

Baked Potato Soup


6 large baking potatoes
6-8 cups of low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup of milk or cream
1/4 sour cream (you can skip this if you're using cream instead of milk)
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 - 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped into small pieces
3 scallions (green and white/green parts) finely chopped

1. Pour chicken broth into large stockpot.  While it's coming to a boil, peel the potatoes and chop into small 1 inch pieces.  Add to boiling broth.  Boil until soft, about 15-20 minutes.  The pieces should kind of fall apart when you stick them with a fork.

2. While the potatoes are boiling, cook the bacon until fairly crispy.  Once done, pat with a paper towel and chop up into small bits.

2. I don't have an immersion blender, so once the potatoes are done, I scoop cups of the potatoes with the broth into a blender and mix until smooth.  This part is cool, the starchiness of the potatoes makes the mixture really thick and kind of gluey.  Do this in batches until all of the potatoes have been blended smooth.  If you had an immersion blender, you could just stick it right in the pot and blend until smooth.

3. Put the blended mixture back on the stove on low.  Mix in grated cheese, milk or cream, sour cream, and red pepper flakes.  Let the flavors mix together for at least 5 minutes, then taste it.  The red pepper flakes are pretty spicy, and they get spicier the longer they're simmered, so don't taste it right after you add them and then add more thinking it's not spicy enough.  And if the soup is too thick, add a little more milk or chicken broth.  If it's too thin, add some more grated cheese.

4. Towards the end, add the bacon bits and scallions.  Let it simmer about 5 minutes more and then serve, preferably with crusty bread.