This post is about two weeks overdue, dear readers, because I've spent the last two weeks experimenting in the Scone Zone.I've baked approximately six batches of scones using the same basic recipe, and all with delicious but varying results. My first and last batches, vanilla-almond cherry scones and lemon scones, were my favorites and both involved slight departures from this base recipe:Ingredients 2 C All-purpose flour 1/2 C Brown Sugar 2 t Baking Powder 1/2 t Salt 1/2 C Dried Fruit, diced into 1/2 inch cubes, if needed 1 1/2 C Heavy Cream 1/2 t Almond extract 1/2 t Vanilla extract 1 egg…
Saturday night I found myself Googling "how to eyeball a teaspoon." I had gone over to my boyfriend's house in downtown D.C. for a Valentine's date before Valentine's Day, fully intending to get my kitchen goddess on and make the best chocolate and java buttercream-filled sandwich cookies he had ever tasted. Unfortunately, I forgot that he owns nothing in the way of measuring spoons, and rather than cooly dashing salt here and pinching baking soda there, I instead had a kitchen full of failed measuring experiments. I tried converting ounces to tablespoons to teaspoons and immediately gave up…
After posting "Box Mixes Aren't Cheating," a reader challenged me to make the same cake using a scratch recipe. It took me two hours in total, and frankly, I'm not sure it was worth it -- not yet, anyway. "Baking isn't all that hard if you remember to MEASURE accurately. You can taste the difference," Erin wrote in the comments of my last post. Well, I did it; though I can't say that I measured accurately. Last weekend I gathered my flour, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla and eggs to attempt a recreation of Trader Joe's boxed coffee cake mix. Being a beginner scratch baker, I already knew …
Box mixes get a bad rap. It's so hip to say you made something from scratch, never mind that you misread the tsp label for a tbs label and now your brunch guests are dutifully chewing salty muffins, wishing you had just gone to Costco instead. "You made these from scratch?" they choke out after swallowing, "Amazing!" Sure, it's nice to pretend you are Julia Child in the kitchen and you've a similar way with butter, but you're not and you don’t. Whether you've lost your measuring cups; you can't tell the difference between baking soda and baking powder, or you're rushing to a dinner party, …
New Years is just okay. Maybe I just don't get it, but in the 23 years I have experienced the heralding of a new digit at the end of our calendar and the firm kick-in-the-rear to the last, I have remained staunchly unimpressed. Okay, so a glittery ball inches slowly to the ground during the last minute of the "year." So streets are littered with confetti at the final moment as multitudes of people attempt to sing an archaic though admittedly pretty song that no one understands. Usually, I've spent those final moments feeling underwhelmed, as I critically rate the kissing skills of those …
