Tag Archives: scones

New Year’s Day Tea Party

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On New Year’s Day, Tawn’s university friends gathered for what I hope will be an annual tradition: New Year’s Tea. Our host, Bim, prepared scones and a variety of snacks. I prepared the tea sandwiches. Everyone had a good time.

Bim’s scones. This was her first time making them and she experimented with a few different sizes. The larger ones were more delicate although the small ones were tasty, too.

My two types of tea sandwiches. Finding bread that was soft but would hold up to the cutting was a challenge. The bread on the left is also made with black glutinous rice, which explains the small specks.

Making the spreads. On the left, a watercress compound butter. On the right, a green olive and parsley tapenade.

Partially made sandwiches. On the left, the watercress butter is covered with cucumber slices. On the right, the olive and parsley tapenade is covered with provolone cheese. Round cheese does not work so well on square bread.

Friends and baby pose with a lovely spread of afternoon snacks.

Lavender Lemon Buttermilk Scones

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This is turning into some sort of an Iron Chef thing where I get inspired by a certain ingredient or combination of ingredients and return to them day after day.  In this case, I had pulled the lavender from the back of the cupboard and resolved that I had better start using it before it went bad, combined with a good price on lemons at the Gourmet Market at Emporium.  Continuing on the theme, I decided to try a recipe for Lavender and Lemon Buttermilk Scones.

Now, buttermilk biscuits are one of my specialties, one of the few recipes that I can make (and actually follow the recipe!) from memory and that I can turn out consistently, time and time again.  Scones and biscuits are relatives and the biscuits I make reminded a former British roommate of mine of scones, so I figure I can move from one to the other pretty easily.

The recipe I used was from the EatLocal blog on WordPress, but like many similar versions of the recipe I found online, this one was credited as being adapted from Leslie Mackie’s “completely fabulous” Macrina Bakery Cookbook, so that’s maybe where credit is really due.

Lemon Lavender Scones

2 cups flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tsp dried lavender, divided use
4 tbsp chilled butter
½ cup nonfat yogurt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

Heat oven to 400°F.  In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest, and 1½ tsp of lavender.

Cut butter into pieces and cut into dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, or crumble in with your fingers.  Separately, whisk together yogurt and buttermilk. Combine wet and dry ingredients to form a dough that will be wet and sticky.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times, then shape into a square about 1′ thick. Using a kitchen knife, cut the dough into eight triangles.  (As you can see, I used a biscuit cutter for a round shape.)

Transfer to an oiled baking sheet (I just used parchment paper instead of oiling and brushed the tops of the scones with cream) and bake 20 minutes, or until scones are golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet. Meanwhile, dissolve powdered sugar in lemon juice and mix in ½ tsp lavender, then drizzle over scones.

I wasn’t terribly patient – we were hungry and had a condominium juristic meeting to attend – so I put the sugar-lemon glaze on while the scones were warm, so instead of glazing it just absorbed.  Still, they tasted really good.  The tops also cracked, which leads me to believe I should have turned the oven down a little.  My oven is a convection and I think you’re generally supposed to cook at a slightly lower temperature but I don’t always heed this advice.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy these scones as you begin your weekend!