Never Bashful with Butter

This one would definately take the cake.

…or in this case.. Pie.

In the beginning, there were all sorts of cosmic happenings.

People were being created from ribs, No one could tell the difference between a Beatles tune penned by Paul or one by John, Harry met Sally, Star Jones thought people would actually believe that she lost all of her weight through Hard work and eating healthy, Children everywhere wondered how an entire colony of little blue smurfs could sustain their population with only one female smurf, People would spend hours debating on which came first, the chicken, or the egg, and women everywhere were listening to snakes and eating apples.

I mean, I can’t blame Eve for eating the apple. Heck.. I would have done the same thing. I’m a sucker for a nice big juicy apple.  Snow white even fell for the ol’ apple trick.

Personal beliefs aside, I believe that humans are drawn to the apple for many reasons. It neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comreally is one of the world’s most perfect foods.

…and because I’m a human being, I find myself buying these giant five, or even ten pound sacks of apples, and then forgetting to enjoy them when they are at their optimum crispness, and then settling on baking a plain old apple pie after I’ve cleaned my refrigerator.

Here’s a little teaser of what lay ahead…

Apple pies are simple, and delicious. And they should be.
Anyone should be able to make, bake and eat an apple pie, and enjoy every luscious bite of it.

But I’m tired of baking plain old apple pies. I yearn to try new and different types of pastry fillings. I love my pie, don’t get me wrong, but there must be something ELSE that I can do with apples, than slice ‘em, coat ‘em in sugar, cinnamon and flour and call it a day.

So today… I did something different.

Confronted with a fridge full of medium sized granny smith apples on the verge of.. well, not making it… I pulled out my old standby apple combination partner. A bag of almonds.

A while ago, I made some delicious Caramel apple almond custard tarts with phyllo dough. Ever since, I’ve found myself pairing up apples and almonds in everything from pancake flavours to candy fillings.

But what to do, today.
Well.. I’ve been craving a big fat slice of good old fashioned Butter pecan pie.. so… I guess I’d just have to work with that…

Here is what I came up with-

Just imagine a delicious combination of apple, almond, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter mixed together with a few other things, tossed into a buttery delicious pate brisee pie crust.

If you’ve ever had a pecan pie, you recognize the light crisp crust that forms on top of the filling…

Mmm.. buttery crust, so flaky!

With big chunks of apple, and the crunch of almonds…

Yeah, I wanted to eat the whole thing.. but I practiced moderation and had my husband finish my slice. It was unbelievably delicious though, and I’m proud to say this recipe is 100% unadulterated MY OWN creation.

One thing should be mentioned about this particular pie, however.

It is extremely rich, and despite the Delicious one- two punch that the apple provides with its sweet- tart flavour, This might actually be considered an artery buster. Yep. As one might assume with a pie inspired by another pie with “butter” in the title, this pie relies quite heavily on the flavour and texture that butter provides, so.. Yes, this is a very buttery pie. There is butter in the crust, and about a half cup of butter in the filling.

But for a one time indulgence, or a quick pie that anyone can make to surprise or impress anyone who loves a good apple pie, but has been known to find their fingers in a pecan pie or two, I say let it slide. So long as you don’t eat the whole thing, a little butter never hurt no-body!
*smile*
So good.

It was a great finish to a nice warm summer day. If only I had some vanilla ice cream… oh, imagine the things you could do!

I’ll admit it. It happened again, with the apples.

We bought way too many at once for any two typical 20 year olds. Sure, we could have made a bigger dent in the collection if I’d remembered to pack one in my lunch more than a few times a week, or if I’d reached for one of them instead of one of the bananas on the counter. Heck, I think it happens to everyone at some point in their life.

We just had too many apples, and no one wants to see a good apple go to waste. It was just too bad that these ones were on the verge of being thrown out..

I toyed with the idea of making a plain old apple pie. Nah. Not today. I wanted something different. Something new, something not so traditional, but completely delicious that would make me wish I’d decided to make a commitment to eating “healthier” just a few days later than I did.

Well, I think I did it. And I’m here to share with you the delicious concoction that sprang forth from my fridge and into my belly, where right now it cries for the companionship of the rest of the pie.

Sad but true, I’m staving off eating it all by posting this blog a lot sooner than I’d planned. haha.. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to keep from diving into a delicious pie every now and then, ya know?

And for your own information, this recipe is 100% completely and totally my own creation. Use it with wild abandon, but stop short of claiming its been in your family for centuries, alright? *smile*

Onward!

Here’s the recipe for “Never Bashful’s” Brown Buttered Apple Almond pie.

You’ll need-

3/4 cup brown sugar
4 Tablespoons cinnamon
A pinch of nutmeg
1 tablespoon melted butter
3 cups granny smith apples, cut into small pieces less than 1″each. (about 5 or 6 medium sized apples)
1 1/2 cups roughly chopped unsalted almonds
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon flour

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the melted butter and stir until mixture forms a solid mass. Set aside.

Place your cut apples into a large mixing bowl. Add the almonds and toss until the almonds have combined and begun sticking to the apples. Crumble in the brown sugar mixture. Hand toss until combined. Add in the butter, breaking up the cubes with your fingers and combining them with the apple almond brown sugar mixture.

The mixture should be rough, but throughly mixed. There should be no liquid at the bottom of the bowl, but the mixture shouldn’t be dry or crumbly.

Sprinkle the flour over the entire mixture and stir slightly to combine.

And thats it.

Slap that mound of delicious filling (you’ll be intoxicated by the cinnamon, trust me.) into an unbaked pate brisee pie crust, and bake for about 30-35 minutes at 375 degrees. Don’t forget to wrap the edges of the pie crust with tin foil, or use crust guards for the first 20 minutes of the baking process. The large amount of butter in this recipe gets absorbed and allows the crust to burn a lot faster than my standard pie crust would.

Its hard for me to contain my delight at how well this pie turned out. Its as though EVERY SWEET FLAVOUR I’ve ever craved has found its way into my pie crust, and baked up to perfect deliciousness. its got the buttery flavour of a butter tart, Its got the smooth creamy crunch of pecan pie, and the tart sweet flavour that only can be found inside a good old fashioned apple pie. All mixed together with butterscotch, cinnamon toast, sugar cookies served with a dash of caramel cream.

I could just die right now, knowing I’ve tasted heaven in a pie crust.
…not to brag or anything. *wink*

-A.

Truthfully, I spent half of my childhood 10 blocks away from where I spent the other half of my childhood. I grew up in two houses. The first one, where so many fond memories come from.. where I was “raised”, and the second one, where I “grew up”.

The first house, a small, white, two bedroom house with a large porch overlooking (and at times almost collapsing into) a small creek below.  I saw the easter bunny here. I imagined that leprechauns lived across the creek from us. This is where my dad singed off all the hair on the front half of his body, from the waist up, after a tragic “burn barrel” accident. We had a cherry tree that only produced two cherries the whole time we lived there, and I ate both of them, lied about it and said one of our pets must have done it.

I learned to make french toast there.  Our family had a successful honey bee business there. We gained two family members when we got our two dogs, Sally Ann, a bull mastiff and my best buddy, and Heidi, a large collie. We later lost a family member when Heidi was hitneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com by a car in the road next to the house. Sally Ann never was the same.

From this house we often travelled those 10 blocks away over to my great grandpa’s house. Five acres of strawberries, a handful of cherry trees bursting with fruit. A pear tree, a vibrant raspberry bush, a well kept blackberry bush, filbert trees, walnut trees, pears and peaches and a grape vine. At the end of the day, we travelled back those 10 blocks and went home.

Soon, a time came where my great grandpa’s house became our home. The strawberries were long gone, the cherry trees still there, but not nearly as fruitful, but everything else was nearly the same.

Summers spent picking berries, wasting half of our share in impromptu berry fights, sending friends home covered in raspberry stains, reaching high into treetops from a sturdy ladder and bringing down handfuls of cherries. Crouching low beneath filbert trees sorting out the ripe from the rotten and returning home with baskets full of nuts ready to be cracked and eaten.  Summers were to be spent barefoot, walking around on kid feet though the occasional sharp rock would make you stop, clutch your foot and catch your breath before you continued walking wherever it was you were compelled to go.

My family was always nearby. Being raised at the first house, there was always some matter of relative living across the street from us. When we moved into my great grandpa’s house, we were surrounded by what one of my future employers would call “The Harris Compound”, due to the large amount of relatives living within earshot of our house. Living this close to relatives had its perks and its disadvantages.

I passed my 9th grade horticulture class based off of the friendship between my Great Uncle Richard, who was also my neighbour at the time, and my horticulture teacher “Johnny”. I don’t remember his last name, actually. He had everyone call him Johnny. Years before my Great Uncle was a co-worker of his, a teacher at the same school district that I now attended. Johnny came out to my house to view my final project, which I fully admit I totally messed up on, and procrastinated my way through. My great uncle just happened to be walking out to get the mail when Johnny spotted him, turning the next half an hour into a “remember when” session rather than a critique on my then non-existant gardening skills.

Then there were the negatives. When left alone in the house, loud music was reported to my parents as soon as they came home. I never really was alone, because random relatives would stop in from time to time, and it was everyone in the family’s job to entertain them. It was very difficult to dodge relatives. Especially since some of these relatives I really did not enjoy the company of.

There were a few that I enjoyed being around. My great Aunt Irene, for one. This woman was a walking flower encyclopedia. After we moved into my great grandpa’s house, someone rototilled over the grape vine, and she was the only person on our street with a grape vine. She let us come over and pick grapes every fall, since she figured she was too old to do anything about it herself, and she knew our family would do something good with them. My best fall memories are sitting on the back porch, drinking hot, fresh grape juice from mason jars while swatting mosquitoes away from my face. Sitting in the kitchen late at night with the back door open and my mom bent over the stove, busy canning our pick. Ant Irene was an artist, which probably explains why I got along with her as well as I did. She was certainly much different from her siblings, my grandma and my great aunt Marion. Neither of those two really took a liking to me.

My grandma was, before the stroke at least, a very critical person. My Great aunt Marion always seemed wrapped up in her own little world. Visiting her, even though she lived maybe 2 minutes walk from our back door, seemed like entering another world. She had a beautifully landscaped back yard that made me think of the secret garden every time I stepped into it. There were just issues with us communicating, otherwise I think I would have liked her much more.

Of course, My great Aunt Irene died a few years ago, My grandma has tamed a bit since her stroke, but its difficult to talk to her when she has the short term memory of a gold fish. My great Aunt Marion I haven’t seen for years though, so I imagine her as I remember her back when I was a child, yelling at me for stealing filberts from the trees on her side of the driveway, or bargaining with me, flowers for weeds, allowing me to pick a few flowers from her garden for so many weeds I pulled for her.

I always picked the flowers for my mom. I don’t know if she even remembers. I would roam through the back field, searching for daisies to put in one of the milk glass vases she kept under the kitchen sink by the rubber gloves and brillo pads. I’d bring in branches from the lilac tree, or blossoms from the cherry trees. We had tiger lillies in the back yard, and  I would try to pretend I was as good at flower arranging as Aunt Reenee (our nickname for Irene) and present the flowers to my mom, who was more than likely allergic to half the stuff I brought in the house, but suffered through it to say thank you, and placed them on the kitchen table no matter how ugly they looked.

On lazy summer afternoons she would send me and my friends to go pick berries for her, which she would smash together and freeze, so once they were frozen we could pour them into a bowl and eat them with a spoon like an Icee, or she would send us across the street to go pick filberts.

My pre-teen summers were filled with raspberries and filberts.

So today’s project is a taste of my childhood, only slightly sweeter.

I made a delicious vanilla hazelnut cake, filled it with raspberry buttercream, wrapped it in marshmallow fondant and poured over a generous helping of warm raspberry sauce. I would have garnished with some crushed filberts, but I ran out, so I used some of the fondant for a nice cake decoration on top.

Its a very simple, moist cake, with a flavourful filling. The Raspberry sauce adds flavour to the fondant, but the fondant does not need to be eaten, as the cake itself is iced with buttercream below it.

I felt the need to make a little cake, and this one was small. Five inches by five inches. I probably would have iced it differently, but I had some fondant left over from the sheep cake, and fondant only keeps for so long unused in the fridge.

So there you go. Some memories, and a little cake to go along with it.

This post is FULL of recipes. Sure, there are plenty of ways around this. You could easily add ingredients to store bought mixes, but you know that we all enjoy making delicious foods from scratch. This is one that truly is worth the time and effort put into it.

Alright, so this recipe is for those of you who live by the metric system!

I had to translate this recipe from German, so I did my best with the measurements. I know, I should by weighing all my ingredients anyways, but I don’t, I just used the ounces measurements on the left side of my measuring cups. hehe..

Recipe for Vanilla Filbert (Hazelnut) cake-

3 eggs
175 grams granulated white sugar (approximately 6 ounces)
1 tsp. vanilla concentrate
250 grams ground filberts (hazelnuts) (approximately 1 cup)
1/8 litre milk (approximately 1/2 cup)
250 grams flour (approximately 1 cup)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp. Frangelico (optional)

You’ll need to use a food processor, or pre-grind your filberts finely in a hand grinder or buy them already ground up. The finer the grind, the tighter the grain of the cake will be, and the more moist.

Grind the filberts (hazelnuts) in food processor to a fine grind; add sugar and vanilla and mix well. Slowly add the milk. Mix the baking powder into the flour and slowly add to hazelnut mixture. Add frangelico, if desired.

Grease a cookie sheet, and spread dough evenly on the sheet. Bake at 400F (200C) for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Test with cake tester. When cake has cooled, cut thin cake into desired size for layering. Brush some warmed raspberry preserves before filling with a layer of raspberry buttercream, and stack another layer of the cooled cake on top. Refrigerate overnight before decorating, to allow the flavours to settle in.

Recipe for raspberry buttercream-

I like my raspberry buttercream to be full of flavor, so I use both fresh raspberries and raspberry extract. If you do not want so much flavour, you could easily omit the extract, or add vanilla extract in its stead.

1/2 cup butter, cubed and slightly softened.
1/2 cup fresh raspberries-smashed
1 teaspoon raspberry extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon cream or whole milk (if needed)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until its smooth. Add the raspberry extract. Add the raspberries in two parts, alternating between berries and sugar. If the mixture is powdery or too hard, add the tablespoon of cream, if the mixture is too soft, add a little more powdered sugar until it sets up and is light and fluffy.

Recipe for raspberry sauce-

1 cup raspberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons raspberry preserves

Add all ingredients to a medium sized sauce pan on medium heat. Stir occasionally until mixture comes to a boil, stirring more frequently. Allow mixture to boil for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Strain through a fine sieve and when mixture is warm to the touch, pour overtop fondant wrapped filbert cake.

As far as a recipe for fondant goes, I have my own recipe, but I’ve also used this one, which is way simpler. It comes directly from the Associated Content website-

16 oz. mini marshmallows
2 TBSP water
2 lbs powdered sugar

First, sprinkle the water over the marshmallows and microwave them to melt, as if you were making crispy cereal bars. Now you must knead the sugar into the melted marshmallows. Its easiest if you have a heavy duty stand mixer with a dough hook, but it can be done by hand as well. Do not use all the sugar unless you have to. The proper consistency will be about like PlayDoh. If you want to color the entire batch with one color, you can add some paste/gel food color in as you knead. You can also add vanilla or almond extracts or any other flavor you choose during the kneading process. After you have it well kneaded, you will want to wrap it tightly and let it rest for 15-30 minutes.

While working with the marshmallow fondant, have a bit of Crisco or some spray oil handy to keep the work surface, rolling pin, and your hands lightly greased. This will help keep the fondant from sticking and also helps the surface of the fondant maintain a glossy shine. If you find your fondant is still too sticky, knead in a bit more sugar.

To cover a cake, simply roll out a circle of fondant about ¼” thick and wide enough to cover the top and sides of your cake. Make sure the cake itself has a thin, smooth layer of glaze or icing, and then gently lay the fondant over the cake. Carefully smooth the fondant down the sides, pulling the bottom edge out as you go to avoid wrinkles in the fondant. Then, simply trim away the bottom with a knife.

So go, make, assemble and enjoy. This cake is delicious!

-A.

I was just online, perusing my favourite foodblogs looking for grocery shopping ideas, and I get a Gmail prompt saying I got an email from Chris Cardinal over at the Threadcakes contest.

And guess what?!?!

We totally won.

Thats right, We totally won!

I am beyond excited. I had managed to psyche myself out of the running even, and I was totally hoping that one of my personal top 5 would win.

Just to brag a little bit, here is the text from the threadcakes website-

“It was a long, ridiculously hard battle. I was absolutely thrilled by the sheer volume of cake labored over, constructed with blood, sweat and frosting. You guys REALLY rocked out, and blew me away!

Given that, I was SHOCKED that 8 out of 10 people all voted for the SAME first place cake! Something about it just really grab everyone’s eye. (The two who didn’t give it first place awarded it second place!) So, without further adieu, here are your winners of the 2007 Threadcakes Awesome Contest:

1. Insomnia by vapidintuition
2. Chinese Peaches by Ytfelmi
3. Loch Ness Imposter by connie
4. Snack (2) by Stephanie
   Sail the High Trees by Ytfelmi
   (Omitted because Ytfelmi took 2nd place!)
5. Lions Are Smarter Than I Am by lucretia mott

I’ve got to say, there were quite a few cakes that I thought would win. Ours was not one of them, for some reason. I honestly thought it would go down like this-

1. Loch Ness imposter by connie
2. Chinese Peaches by Ytfelmi
3. Snack (2) by Stephanie
4. Fake pandas have more fun by danielle1117
5. You are what you eat (2) by Alexandra marie

I would not have been disappointed had it gone down like that either. I think all of those entries were well done and amazing. There were others that I liked a lot too. Infact, there were only a few that I thought were done more for the fun of it than for the actual hope of winning, which is totally cool too, because cake making doesn’t have to be all serious, it should be fun. *smile*

Anyways, I just wanted to let everyone know the update on that one, as I promised I’d keep everyone informed and let you all know as soon as I did.

YAY!

And now that it’s officially too early in the morning..

G’nite all!
-A.

I’m not sure when I started my collection.

If I had to make a guess, I’d go with my freshman year in highschool. I would have been 13 years old on the verge of turning 14.  My dad was traveling a lot for work, and my older sister had moved out abruptly, so when I’d get home from school every night, it was just me, my mom and my little sisters, who were just under 2 years old.

Money was tight. My mom was busy with my little sisters a lot, so.. Thank goodness for the internet.

I had a little Geocities website, like a lot of my friends at the time. I went crazy with links and posting photos and rants and other strange things.. One of the pages I had was called “Hail the almighty Sugra: Goddess of sugar” and along with another friend of mine, we updated it bi-weekly with our top 10 list of sugary foods, links to sugary sites, candy critiques and other similar things.

It was a lot of fun, and honestly, thats probably what got me starneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comted with the idea to collect sugar packets.

The first packet I collected was from Burgerville, a local fast food joint. Then I started noticing how sugar packets were pretty much everywhere, they were FREE and they were all so different.

Soon, I had amassed a collection of about 100 different sugar packets. No doubles. All documented as to where they came from, when, and what the purpose was. It was my own way of keeping my memories. I put them in a ziploc baggie in a box and put the box on a shelf in my bedroom.

And then disaster struck.

Sugar ants had somehow found their way into my bedroom, probably after finding a few too many popsicle wrappers on the ground by my desk.. They made their way on to my desk, and into the box.. I had either left the baggie open or they ate their way inside, because the sugar packets had been dissolved to a mushy mess. Damn ants. after taking my aggression out on the remaining in the box by smashing them with the handle of my hair brush, I set up ant bait stations and consoled myself over the loss of my collection.

From this point on, I’d decided that the packets would be stored in three layers of baggie inside a tupperware box.

I began collecting again. Being a kid from a small town, word spread amongst my friends pretty quick, and soon they were arriving at school after family vacations with ziploc baggies full of sugar packets from places they’d stopped for a bite along the way. My mom learned of my collection, and then my dad, who started bringing home sugar packets from each of his business trips.

I even had a friend travel to California to see relatives, and discovered that one of her Great Aunts collected sugar packets TOO! That sweet old woman donated about 6 antique sugar cubes to my collection.

Time went on, hobbies came and went. Friends moved away and new people came into my life. Through it all, I’ve maintained my collection, and kept on collecting, whether by mentioning to travelling friends and relatives that they could bring me back a few packets, or by travelling on my own.

I’ve got sugar packets from almost every one of the United States,  from Mexico, Greece, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Spain, England and Ireland. I’ve got packets and tubes and cubes. I’ve got generic packets, packets with logos from hotels, restaurants, convenience stores.

But my favourite, by far, are the ones with little notes written on them.

I can look at any of these and recall the situation. I’ve got sugar packets memorializing at least two of my friends coming out. I’ve got sugar packets from impromptu beach trips with friends. I’ve got girls night out sugar packets, and “the first time I got drunk” packets, and “I just saw 12 hot firemen eating lunch” packets. I’ve got a packet from every first date I’ve ever gone on. I’ve got a packet from senior grad night. I’ve got one from my senior prom. I’ve even got a sugar packet from the night my husband proposed.

Some people collect Coca Cola memorabilia. Some people collect antique glass ware. Some people collect Star Wars action figures. I collect sugar packets. And while my collection might not be worth anything to most people, they’re special to me. They’re my little memories.

And just to show off, here is the sugar packet from the night my husband asked me to marry him. He decorated it right before we left the restaurant that night. *Smile*

So I know, this isn’t so much “Food” related, but it is.

Sugar is food.

People have asked me why I don’t take the sugar out of the packets before storing them, and I can’t really give them an answer. I’ve never thought about that really, because it’s not really an option. The packets just wouldn’t be the same without the sugar inside.

-A.

What crazy things do YOU collect?

I should have included this in the original post, but here is a link to the Wikipedia entry about Scones. Its a more clear version of what I’ve typed up, and more detailed (and includes the Utah Scone/fry bread thing) Still though, the clarification provided below is simple and good enough for me.Last week someone asked about scones, and if I knew how to make them.

Thing is, there are so many different types of scones, and variations upon those types of scones, that I’d be both lying and telling the truth if I said I knew how to make them. I’ve made welsh scones before (at least the type they call welsh scones here in the U.S.) Which are a batter based thick griddle cake.

*EDIT* just a little note, clockworktomato neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comhas clarified the whole UK scone/ US scone/ Biscuit issue-

English scone = U.S. biscuit
English biscuit = U.S. cookie
U.S. scone = large, triangular pastry with a texture somewhere in between cake and muffin.

*end edit*

I’ve made Cake scones before, which are typically dense, sweet, and light additives like fruits and nuts, and usually have a glaze poured over top.

I’ve made savoury scones with herbs and spices and all sorts of things.

But my favourite types of scones are the fluffy biscuit type scones. They’re chock full of things like nuts and chocolate and dried fruit. I searched all over my pantry and I could not find the dried cranberries that I planned on adding to these, so I opted to add little toffee chunks instead.

These are Dark chocolate, roasted almond and toffee chunk scones. They’re a fluffier type of scone, and they’ve got a lightly crisp outside, and a fluffy soft inside. You can split them and put butter, cream or preserves inside, or eat them plain, though they’re not inherently sweet without a sugar glaze. I opted not to apply a sugar glaze for two reasons. One, because they’re not as pretty with the glaze on them. If this were a more cakey scone, it would be just fine, but since this is much more biscuity, the glaze makes it look flat, and I didn’t like that idea. Second reason being that I planned on eating them with strawberry preserves with bits of fresh strawberry added, and that is plenty sweet enough for a breakfast scone by itself. No need to give myself a sugar rush first thing in the morning.

Infact, its sort of strange how UN-sweet these scones are. There is very little sugar in the batter, and the dark chocolate isn’t so sweet, the almonds are unsweetened, and the only real sweetness comes from the toffee chunks and the toffee swirl on the outside of the scone. They were really good though, especially with a schmear of strawberry preserves, sliced fresh strawberry and some softened cream cheese.

So here you go. Today’s breakfast, Scones-

And with the strawberry preserves and a bite taken-

I neglected to post any photos of the scone with the cream cheese and preserves because… well.. I was too busy eating it at that point. hehe..
These could easily be made ahead of time and served after being warmed a few seconds in the micro, or cold, or as part of a brunch for a large group of people (always looking for make ahead things for large groups when entertaining) or with tea, though… the tea would have to be particularly sweet and simple to balance the large amount of ingredients in this scone. You could pack them in lunches or serve them with ice cream as a dessert.

Very versatile and very tasty little things these scones are. I cut mine in triangles, but they could easily be cut in rounds or squares.

Also, with scones, you can mix it up a bit. You could add dried fruit, chocolate, and any sort of nut. One of my favourites is praline pecans, banana chips and dark chocolate. Seriously? The best. I just happen to be without praline pecans and banana chips following my trip to Canada. I’ll need to restock soon. hehe..

Recipe!

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface, hands, and cutter
3 tablespoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup chopped oven roasted almonds
1/2 cup chopped high quality dark chocolate pieces
1/4 cup chopped toffee pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter until largest pieces are the size of small peas.

Using a fork, whisk together the cream and eggs in a large glass measuring cup. Make a well in the center of flour mixture, and pour in cream mixture. Stir lightly with fork just until the dough comes together (do not overmix).

Add chopped almonds, chocolate and toffee. fold dough over filling and knead together

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface. With floured hands, gently pat dough into a 4 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch rectangle, about 3/4-inch thick. Cut into medium sized squares and then cut the squares into triangles, and transfer them to lined baking sheet. Brush tops with cream, press a small piece of chocolate into the top of the scone, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake scones until golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer scones to wire racks, and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, with strawberry preserves and fresh fruit. (and softened cream cheese if you love that flavour combination as much as I do!

I got the basic scone recipe from Martha Stewart, and I changed a few things and added my own stuff to it to make it tasty.

These were great for breakfast, served warm with a drizzle of toffee sauce, some strawberry preserves, sliced strawberries and cream cheese with a glass of milk.

-A.

Back from Canada-land!

From Cafe Laurel-
Chocolate creme custard made with callebaut chocolate, chocolate caramel crust, caramel sauce and whipped cream.
The gooseberry and strawberries look kinda crazy on there, but it was REALLY GOOD.

Lemon cheesecake with sour cherry glaze. Good, but not as good as the dessert above.

At Spinnakers-
Raspberry cheesecake with Raspberry coulis. Pretty but not as good as it looks.

Tasty tasty dark chocolate espresso ganache tart.

Lunch from The Cooks Landing Lounge-

everbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comr
Chicken Souvlaki with grilled pita, rice, tzatziki and greek salad with feta.

Turkey club with Chips.

Dinner at Cafe Laurel-

Lambchops with Rhubarb glaze, potatoes and veggies

The potatoes were light pink, and I can’t remember the name of them. They were sweet-ish and pretty dang good.

Grilled steak with green peppercorn sauce, veggies and potatoes.

I want my Steaks to have perfect grill marks like that!

Late lunch at Spinnakers-

Chicken fetticini with roasted vegetables-

Brewers yeast battered fish and chips.

All in all, very good food!  We were only there for 24 hours, so really, we didn’t get to go to too many restaurants. Next time though, we’re going to stay longer so we can enjoy more of what the city has to offer.

I am pretty happy to be back home though. hehe.. yay!
-A.

My husband was running late for work this morning.

Well, not so much late, but he had decided that he was going to work a later shift, so he had more morning time than usual. So, since I was awake, and I had about an hour of extra time before he left for work, I made a quick batch of cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Normally, I wouldn’t be able to make a whole batch in an hour, but last night I started working on the dough, and after the first rise, I put the dough in the fridge so I could finish it today.

I rolled the dough out, slathered on the filling, rolled the dough back up, sliced it and sat it on the pan to rise one final time before baking it.

One thing I’ve learned from working in a bakery, is that you can taste the difference between cinnamon rolls that have been iced IMMEDIATELY after coming out of the oven, and cinnamon rolls that have cooled down before icing.

The ones that are cooled first, are drier. There is a certain crunch that comes from dough that cools and is then iced. The icing isn’t absneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comorbed into the roll and they’re just not as soft or flaky.

I didn’t have much time this morning, but I threw on some nice thick cream cheese roll icing, and took some quick pictures while my husband devoured the roll.

My husband and I are not too fond of raisins inside our cinnamon rolls. I had planned on adding some chopped nuts to the mix, but my husband vetoed that idea, though I think the nuts would have been a good addition. Pecans and almonds are DELICIOUS in cinnamon rolls.

I did add a little almond extract to the roll icing though, and when the vanilla almond scent collided with the cinnamon, it was heavenly. My husband loved the roll, and promptly went for another. I’m saving mine for my after dinner dessert tonight. I’m pretty full of fruit now, with that strawberry slushy in my tummy. *smile*

This post was inspired by the the multitude of posts featuring cinnamon, or sticky rolls that my friends and community members have posted in the past few days. Seriously guys? you know how to make a girl crave something sweet! hehe..
In order to make these cinnamon rolls, you’ve got to make a sort of
modified Danish dough recipe.

The cool thing about this recipe, is that you can make it ahead of
the time, let it sit on the fridge and finish it in the morning, so long
as you’ve got about an hour to work with, and end up with piping hot
cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven for breakfast.

So here goes, you’ll need-

1 envelope active dry yeast
3/4 cup milk, warm (about 110 degrees.)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold

In a large bowl sprinkle the yeast over the milk. Let sit for about 5
minutes. Add the egg, sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk gently to
combine. Set aside.

Quarter each stick of butter and cut into 9 or 10 pieces. Toss the
diced butter and flour together in a medium bowl.

Add the flour and butter mixture to the wet ingredients and fold
with a rubber spatula until the flour is completely moistened.
Transfer the dough to a smaller bowl, cover with plastic wrap
and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a heavily floured
surface, pat it into a rectangle about 8 x 6 inches, and then
roll it into a larger rectangle about 14 x 24 inches. Brush
off any excess flour and fold both edges in so that they meet
in the center. If the dough is sticking underneath, release it
with a long flexible metal palate knife. Dusting off any excess
flour and fold the dough in half when the edges meet. This is
called a “book or 4-fold”. Rotate the rectangle of dough 1/4
turn on the table. This is called a “turn”. Roll into a rectangle
measuring about 24 x12 inches, loosening the dough
underneath with a the metal spatula, reflouring as necessary.
Brush off any excess flour and give it another book
fold. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 20 to 30
minutes.

After removing the dough from the fridge, repeat the folding and
rolling process, each time allowing it to rest in the fridge for about
20 minutes before repeating. You’ll want to do this a total of 4 times.

let the dough sit in the fridge overnight after the fourth turn.

In the morning, remove from the fridge and roll out until about a
half inch thick on a floured surface.

Allow the dough to rest while you prepare the filling.

You’ll need-

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix all of this together until you’ve got a nice gooey paste.
If its too crumbly, add more butter, if its
too thin, add more cinnamon and brown sugar. Basically,
you’re making a cinnamon struesel
topping, only you’re spreading it inside the dough.

Once you’ve got the mix together, spread it with an icing knife
onto the rolled out dough. You want a nice thick layer, almost
as thick as the layer of dough you’re spreading it on.
This will produce a nice sticky roll.

Now roll the dough up tightly. You don’t want a lot of air in there,
or the filling will melt out instead of melting and being absorbed
into the dough.

Now that you’ve got yourself a little dough log nice and rolled up
tight, cut into 1 1/2 slices with a nice big sharp knife.

place them about an inch apart on an ungreased jelly roll pan
or in two circular cake pans. You want to make sure your pan
has sides at least an inch high, because the filling will ooze
out a little onto the pan.

Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, and you’ll end up with a dozen
(or more, depending on how small you make them) nice soft,
flaky and delicious cinnamon rolls.

Either glaze them with a mix of powdered sugar and milk,
or a cream cheese icing of your choice.

SO GOOD!

-A.

So today, I’ve been busy preparing myself for my trip to Canada-land, and I didn’t really have much in the way of breakfast under my belt when I started feeling a familiar rumbly in my tumbly that made me realize I needed to eat something. It was 1:30pm, and I needed a snack.

Well, this morning I had managed to pry myself away from preparations long enough to go to the grocery store next to my house to pick up a few things to eat between now and Tomorrow night when we leave. Really, just a few things.. butter, some granola bars, some sour cream… a sack of potatoes… things that won’t go bad before we get home next week.

…And a few containers of fresh strawberries.

I Know! I couldn’t help it. They were just sitting there, and they were on sale. I bought two packages, which is entirely too many strawberries to be eaten before tomorrow. I figured I’d just clean them, remove the hulls and put them in the freeneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comzer to use later.

So I decided that now would be the perfect time to eat some of those strawberries. I washed them, hulled them, and let them dry..And I thought…. I could make a smoothie.

…But I don’t have any yogurt.. Hmm.. A quick perusal of the contents of my fridge yielded something even better.

LIME JUICE!

So I got to work.

I cut the strawberries into quarters. About 3 cups.  Then, I took three tablespoons of Agave nectar and stirred it all together. Then I added  about half a cup of lime juice, and put it in the blender.

A few whirr’s, and 3 cups of store bought ice (the round kind, I don’t like putting the solid squares in my blender)

And I ended up with the most delicious beverage anyone could ask for on a Gloomy May afternoon.

It was really good. Really simple, too. And now I’ve only got half as many strawberries as I started out with, and I’ve got a belly full of fruit with very little added sweetener.

Of course, if you were going to make this, you could use sugar if you wanted. Agave nectar is a lot sweeter than sugar, so you’ll probably want to put a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar in its place.

So there you have it. This one goes out to all the fruit lovers out there! You know who you are!

-A.

P.S. It tastes just like a slurpee, only you can tell its got real strawberries in it. The Lime juice just enhances the strawberry flavour, and intensifies it. It’s delicious! And good for you!