Cream Scones

I love Scones. SO MUCH. After looking at lots of recipes, I always come back to this one, because it's ridiculously simple. No fussing with eggs, cutting in butter, and it's a one bowl deal. Can be thrown together in 10-15 min and they take less time to cook. From the JOY OF COOKING. My friend from England who was incredibly homesick gobbled these up.





Position a rack in the center of the oven, preheat to 425. Have ready a large ungreased baking sheet (a pizza stone works really well).

Whisk together in a large bowl:
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

At this phase add in any of the following you like, although they are great plain too.
1/2 cup dried fruit, chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg, citrus zest...

Pour over dry ingredients, and stir until just barely moistened:
1 1/4 cups heavy cream.

Gather the dough into a ball, and gently knead it against the bowl a few times till it sticks together in a rough ball. Transfer to a lightly floured surface, and pat into an 8 in disc about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges, place on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with  cream or milk. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake 12-15 min, till golden brown. Let cool or serve warm.

Today I added nutmeg, orange zest, apricots and chocolate chips.
Here's the baby squealing as the oven timer went off.

Baked Eggs in Maple Toast Cups

Yet another from the "150 Best American Recipes" that has made it to my frequently cooked category. As in, I make it a couple times a month. So easy, and it looks really fancy, but I don't even need the recipe anymore. So instead of typing it word for word...

1 1/2 Tablespoons butter melted
1 1/2 Tablespoons maple syrup (the real stuff please!!!)
6 slices of bread with crusts cut off (regular store bread works great)
3 slices bacon cooked till crisp and crumbled
6 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400, butter 6 muffin cups, or 6 ramekins, or use silicone cupcake cups

Combine maple syrup and melted butter

cut off crusts from the bread slices, and flatten with a rolling pin. brush both sides with the butter/maple mixture, and stuff down inside the muffin cup.

sprinkle some bacon on top of the toast (i never seem to have the bacon on hand, and it's just wonderful even without it) then crack an egg into each cup.

Bake until eggs are set, start checking after about 5 min, but if using individual ramekins it's more like 15 min.

Serve in the ramekins, or tip them out and they hold their shape. So fun! We love them!

Chocolate Ice Cream Taste Test

Two expert Ice cream eaters were put to the test. Which chocolate ice cream is indeed the best? Haagen Dazs, Ben and Jerry's, or Breyers? The subjects were blindfolded, provided with pallet cleansing water in between brands, and the result? Haagen Dazs was the favorite, mostly for the texture, with Breyers as a close second for flavor.
Now you know. Thanks Josh and Joel.

If Cake and Fudge Had a Baby...

it would look like (and taste like) this. "Isn't that just a brownie?" you might ask. No, in fact, it is not a brownie, but a strange yet delicious cake-flavored-fudge-textured hybrid. Another winner from the "150 Best American Recipes" book my friends and I are cooking through. The best part: FOOL PROOF, cause when it comes to cake, I'm definitely a fool. So easy. Read and find out. I love that the recipe suggests you cut the leftovers into cubes, and freeze to be used with ice cream at a later date. I think it might look prettier baked in a round form, but it would lend itself well to all sorts of shapes I imagine. Also, it looks small, but trust me, all you need is a tiny piece, so don't fret about making enough for a large group of company.

Grandmother's Creamy Chocolate Cake
from "The 150 Best American Recipes" cookbook

16 Tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter cut into pieces
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate finely chopped
3/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature (oops, didn't do that, but it still turned out)
1/4 cup flour
Whipped cream, creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream for serving

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and set a rack in the middle level. butter an 8 inch square baking pan and line it with foil.

Melt the butter, chocolate, and sugar in a medium heavy saucepan over medium low heat, stirring almost constantly until well blended. Remove the pan from heat and let stand 3 min.

One by one, whisk in the eggs. Sift the flour over the mixture and stir in. Rap the sauce pan on the counter to deflate any air bubbles and pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Put the baking pan inside a larger pan and fill the larger pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the baking pan.

Bake for 35-40 min (was more like 50-60!) or until the cake tester is set on top and a knife inserted int eh center comes out streaky but not wet. Lift the pan out of the water bath and place on a cooling rack. Let come to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least one hour before un molding.

When the cake is cold, gently turn it over onto a serving platter. lift off the pan and carefully remove the foil. Serve cold or at room temperature with whipped cream, cream fraiche, or ice cream.

Santa Rosa Plum Galette

Again from the 150 Best...it was not very difficult to make, the pastry was easy and very very good, and I will most definitely make that again. Some notes: LINE THE OVEN WITH FOIL. So glad I did. Juice leaks out. It was VERY tart, maybe it was just my plums, but the full dose of sugar was not enough. Overall it was a success, however I would not make it with plums again, but will try maybe fresh peaches, or pears.
Another note: when all said and done, it looks like a small animal was slaughtered on my counter, at least that's what it looked like out of the corner of my eye...eww.

Tortilla Soup with Chicken and Avocado

This was "life changing" soup, and will always remain in my most favorite of favorites. A lot of people underestimate chicken thighs, but they have so much flavor, and they really add a lot to this recipe. For me just the right amount of spice. It burns without being painful, but you can adjust the chili powder to your liking. Josh loved this, even with the avocado, which he normally doesn't like. Better the second day. Seemed complicated the first time, but the second time we made this, I could almost do it without looking at the book.

NOTES: I found that adding the corn and beans and tomatoes to the bowls first made the soup cold too fast. I put it in the pot so they could be hot as well. Keep cilantro and lime and avocado out as a garnish as the recipe suggests.

Bayless's Black Pepper French Toast

After we realized so many of our all time favorite recipes were all from the same book (via TONI sharing!) my friends and I decided to cook our way through our favorite cookbook "The 150 Best American Recipes" By Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens. Lets just get started! We're only posting reviews of recipes so that it's not a problem with copyright (right girls? or not? let me know, maybe it doesn't matter...) Maybe we will convince you to buy it too. Last night Josh made Bayless's Black Pepper French Toast, which is actually from the editors forward! So technically it's not from the 150. D'oh. Anyway, it was really yummy. He used Challah bread, which was perfect for it. If your worrying about the pepper making it spicy, don't. It was a slight after taste, and not spicy. A nice compliment to the honey. Big thick slices, just the right amount of crusty and soft.