Those of you that have read my
Saturday Scones post, and the comment from Miss Eagle regarding
that post, this post is primarily for you. Miss Eagle was concerned that I did not enjoy the
Lemonade Scones as much as she and most people do. Now, I gotta say right off... and I did say this in that post, they were good. I was just disappointed in how they lost their lightness and flavor within a few short hours. When I initially read the recipe I was concerned about the possible lack of leavening ability it had. As far as I could tell, the self-rising flour was the only leavening agent. I did wonder if lemon had some power that I was not aware of. I noticed that Miss Eagle's lemonade in her photo of her ingredients, was from a bottle made by Schweppes's. I've seen Schweppes's Ginger Ale, Lime flavored and plain Seltzer water. Never Schweppes's carbonated lemonade. Minute Maid, Country Time..... you name it, our bottled lemonade's are non-carbonated. So, I made some lemonade and used that. After all, they were called "Lemonade Scones", and the recipe called for lemonade. My technique for scone making has been developed over years of fun making lots of scones. So, I was confident I was okay there. After Miss Eagle and I did some ingredient comparing through email, we discovered that the problem was in fact the "lemonade". In Australia, what that means is lemon flavored seltzer water. That made sense. I knew there was not enough leavening. The seltzer provides carbonation that aids the leavening process. By the time I understood that it was flavored seltzer water that I needed, I had found and purchased a bottle of carbonated lemonade. I thought the name of the Lemonade was so appropriate,
"The Switch". So, I used it and made a second batch of these scones this morning. What a difference a few bubbles makes. For starters, I only used the 2 cups of self-rising flour when I used homemade lemonade. When I used the carbonated lemonade, I used nearly 3 cups of flour to get the dough to a consistency that it was not
goopy and could be rolled. Miss Eagle does mention that you may have to add flour. I have to say, the dough both times was light and so easy to work with. It was like silk. The batch I made today however, rose much higher than the first batch. They had more flavor and stood the time test. These are great scones and I recommend them highly. By the way, I did add currants to half of the batch. Double yum. Yum!! Yum!! Thank you, Miss Eagle for your personal attention here. I am so glad we have met. And yes, let's stay in touch.
Okay, so here is the recipe off of Miss Eagle's blog. (also on link above)
LEMONADE SCONES
2 cups SR flour
pinch salt
1 dessertspoon sugar
2/3 cup lemonade
1 cup cream.
Note: Miss Eagle had to add a little extra flour. This could be to do with the absorbency of the flour. As Miss Eagle has mentioned before, flour varies in its rates of absorbency.
There were no instructions with this recipe, but there is a link to Miss Eagle's Buttermilk scones where directions can be found.
Now, let me tell you how I actually ended up making them:
- Use a cold bowl and utensils. I freeze them for a few minutes.
- Measure cream in a cup and set in freezer for 5 minutes.
- Sift all dry ingredients together. A dessert spoon is the equivalent of 2 teaspoon. I used 1 TBSP.
- Add cream, gently stir.
- Add room temperature carbonated lemonade, mix well but do so quickly.
- Spray butter flavored cooking spray on baking surface.
- On a floured surface knead with palms as little as possible.
- 2" biscuit cutter.. cut scones.
- Brush the top of each scone with cream and sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar.
- 425 degree oven
- 13 minutes
- Place on cooling rack immediately so that moisture from the scone does not cause the bottom to go soggy.
A little clotted cream or whipped cream cheese, some jam............... Eat and Enjoy!
While you are cleaning up..... drink the rest of that lemonade, cold.
Ummmmm good stuff! Oh, there really is not a detectable lemon flavor or
essence in these scones. I will work on a recipe for that. But these are great scones just the same.
Okay, so when I moved the butter dish off of the counter and set it on the stove top to knead the scones, I knew I should have moved it away from the heat. But............. and so the half stick of butter melted completely to liquid. I had just used whipped cream cheese and I knew I only had a few good spoonfuls of it left as well. So, I poured the melted butter into the whipped cream cheese container and mixed them up. I then went out to the herb garden on my deck and snipped some Lemon Thyme, English Thyme and Sweet Basil. I gently crushed them to release their flavor and stirred them into the cream cheese butter mixture. Then, I added just a little bit of dry white wine and whipped it all up nicely. I put the container in the
refrigerator and will take it out 10 minutes before dinner tonight to soften. I will have a loaf of bread and this will be the butter. What a treat. I don't usually do the butter thing. Oh, and I NEVER do the margarine thing... don't even own any. Haven't for ye..... a couple of decades.
Also, I don't use "cooking wine". "Cooking Wine" starts out as poorly made wine. Then, by law, has to be made
undrinkable. The "must" of wine is the mixture of fermenting grape juice, skins, pips, etc. To make "cooking wine" undrinkable, the makers add salt, and/or MSG to the must. Usually, other ingredients are used as well. So, take a poorly made wine and add salt and other
nasties to it, and you have, "cooking wine". Guess what a salty poorly made wine will do to your marinating chicken breast or beef stew. Nothing doing. I try to use the best ingredients I can..... and "cooking wine" is not one of them. Since I am not a dry red or dry white wine drinker, and these are the two most common wines needed for cooking.... I keep little 1 cup?? bottles on hand. If I opened a regular bottle of dry red or white wine, it would go bad before I used it all. So.........
Actually, I am not a white wine drinker at all. I will say though, when traveling through Missouri once, I discovered St. James Winery. Their
Velvet White has to be considered an exception to the white wines. It is sweet and not dry, but it is a white wine. Much to my surprise... I liked it.
My herb garden is not huge this year, and this is not the entire garden. But, this much of it is right outside of my kitchen door and so it is where I get most of my herbs when I am in the kitchen and want to grab an herb or two.
I have some left over angel hair pasta in the refrigerator. Just enough Parmesan cheese for one meal. And, there is a can of
Muir Glen diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes in the cupboard. I think I will saute some olive oil, a couple of cloves of garlic and crushed red pepper together. Throw in the tomatoes. Snip some more basil and toss it in. Then add the left over angel hair. That should be great with the bread and herb butter. Grab the cottage cheese (again, just enough for us one meal) and put the pineapple that's in the refrigerator on top of the cottage cheese. Sounds like dinner to me. Don't even bother taking the chicken out to thaw. YES!!! I love to clean out the fridge just before the weekend.
You know, this is what I call a Geranium day. When I was in early elementary school, I had several books that were called,
Read-Aloud books. I really loved those books. I am hoping to find them when I clean out mom's attic. One of them had a story called, I believe,
The Geranium. It was about a lady that was not feeling happy. Her friend brought a potted Geranium to her and set it on her dining room table. The act of kindness and the beautiful flowers made her feel better. She got up and started to straighten and clean because the house seemed to look even worse with the beautiful and bright flowers sitting in the middle of it. Start the scones.... butter melts... make herb butter... clean out fridge....... great dinner........ and scones for tea later. A Geranium day. I would love to know if anyone has ANY clue were I could find the old,
Read-Aloud books. I should email
Kelli. Bet she'd know.
Bake some scones, make some tea, relax.... but mostly,
Be blessed...........
is when I posted a picture of part of my herb garden BUT........ I discovered something new this year. While at a nursery searching for a few herbs I would buy as plants, I detected the most heavenly scent. I was standing over cilantro and smelling CURRY! I honestly smelled Curry. IMPOSSIBLE! First of all, Curry is a spice not an herb. Second, though there is ground coriander (which comes from the same plant as cilantro) in the curry spice blend... there is no cilantro. Then I noticed a plant that looked like Rosemary or even more like Lavender, 
but had a silver hue to it, and it was daintier. I rubbed the needle like leaves and sniffed. CURRY! For those of you avid herb gardeners, you may think me nuts.. but I have never seen or heard of this delightful little piece of the herb plant world. I had no idea just how you cook with this culinary find, but I bought two and figured I would sort out the details later. They are both pictured here. Since buying these plants I have looked them up and found that:
