Berrylicious Mother's Day Scones

Don't those look delightful? Just the sort of treat for Mom's breakfast or brunch on her special day.

Here is what you will need:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp sugar

5 Tbsp butter cut into pats

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2/3 cup cream

1 to 1/2 cup chopped fresh strawberries

3 - 4 Tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut up your strawberries and place them in a separate bowl. I suggest using 1 cup to start. I was over zealous with my first batch and used too many strawberries, and my dough was SUPER wet.

Take 1/2 cup strawberries and set them aside in a cup (coffee mug is fine) and add 1 Tbsp sugar. Let this set while you mix the other ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, until thoroughly combined. Add the butter, working it in until the mixture is unevenly crumbly.

In separate bowl, whisk together the cream, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.

Now, back to your strawberries. The half cup of strawberries that has been macerating (such a harsh sounding word, don't you think?) should  have some nice, sticky, sweet strawberry syrup in the cup. Carefully spoon out the strawberries, leaving as much syrup behind in the cup as you can; set aside the strawberry syrup, you will use it  soon. Add the macerated strawberries back to the cut up strawberries. Stir those up a bit.

Let's mix up the scones.
Add the cream/egg mixture to the flour mixture and fold gently. Don't worry if the scone mixture is dry, that is OK. When you add the strawberries, it will moisten up.

Now fold in the strawberries gently until just incorporated. You don't want to smush or damage the berries.

Turn out the scone dough onto a well floured cutting board and pat out into a rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick.

Cut your dough in half, vertically, and then cut each half into thirds, horizontally. Cut each third in half diagonally, to give you triangles. Now gently transfer your scones to a baking sheet. I usually line my baking sheet with parchment paper when I am making scones, but it isn't necessary. Your scones may just be a bit brown on the bottom.

Into the oven the go!

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until slightly colored on top. You don't want to dry them out. If your scone dough was still a bit wet, you may need an additional 5 minutes or so. Just watch them if you need to go over 20 minutes of baking time.

While your scones are baking, take that cup with your strawberry syrup in it and add 3 or 4 Tbsp. of powdered sugar to it.

Mix well to create a delicious glaze. I like to add a small splash of vanilla to my glaze to enhance the flavor.

This glaze is just for drizzling. If you want to completely glaze the tops, you may need to add a bit of milk or water to the glaze to make sure you have enough for all the scones.

Once the scones are out of the oven, let them cool for 10 minutes or so before you drizzle them with your glaze.

YUMMY!!! Perfect for Mother's Day. The beautiful thing about these scones, is that you can make them ahead of time and freeze them before you bake them. This way you can have fresh baked scones any time of the day. Using fresh fruit, means that they won't keep for long, but they are so delicious, they may not last the day. They certainly didn't at our house.

Hoping all the Mothers in your life have a wonderful Mother's Day filled with love. . . and scones.
Happy Tuesday to you!

Shannon

American Indian Fry Bread

...or an acceptable way to eat funnel cake for breakfast.  It's not exactly like funnel cake - more like something in between  funnel cake and a doughnut.  SO good.  Not sweet so that's why you top it with sweetness.  I know you want to make some.  Just throw your diet out the window for a day.  It's okay.  Men like curves.

We had some friends over Friday night and she was telling me about this frybread.  I, of course, had to make some the next morning.  So I took some pics for you as I went along so you can make some this Saturday.  Or tonight.  Or as soon as you finish reading this post.

Here's the recipe:
1 1/3 cup of flour plus more for your surface when rolling
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup of milk
vegetable oil for frying
yummy toppings: jam, honey, powdered sugar, etc

Step 1:
Mix the ingredients in a bowl - you should have a biscuit-like consistency.  Sprinkle your surface with flour, and scoop the dough onto the surface.  Roll or pat it out to about1/4" thick.  You could cut it into strips, but Charlotte wanted to do hearts.  So we did.

Step 2:  Heat about an inch of oil in a pan on medium heat.  Test the oil by dropping a small piece of dough into the oil - it should puff up and cook pretty quickly, but not burn.  Once you have all of the dough ready

drop a few into the oil - I could fit 3 hearts in the pan at once. 

 

After about 30 seconds, use a slotted spoon to flip them over.  They should be a pretty golden brown.

After about 30 more seconds, lift them out of the oil onto paper towels. Let the oil drain off while they cool.  Continue making them in batches until all of the dough is used up.  While they are still warm spread your toppings on.  We used strawberry jam with powdered sugar, and honey with powdered sugar.

Oh, just looking at it makes me want to cook some more....I'm thinking there would have been a lot of difficult things about being an early American Indian - but these would have made up for a lot ;)   

 

Have fun and enjoy!!

jessica

Strawberry Shortclip

I really love making little hairclips.  Especially out of felt.  Charlotte has one for every season.  Two of the clips I've made have been from tutorials on the Purl Bee:  flower barrettes and heart barrettes.

I really love their method of assembling the clip.  

So here's my own clip - using their method!

 Here is what you will need:

a 2" inch square of medium green felt

a 2" square of light green felt

a 3" x 2" rectangle of pink felt

a 3" x 4" rectangle of red felt

light pink embroidery floss

light green embroidery floss

scissors

water soluble pen

needle 

tiny barrette

printable pdf pattern

Step 1:  Cut out the five pieces of felt using the pattern.

Step 2:  Cut a tiny slit into one red piece and slip the barrette through it.

Step 3:  Pin the pink piece to the other red piece.  

Using a water soluble pen, make little markings that imitate the seeds.

Thread a needle with four strands of light pink embroidery floss.  

Sew over your markings, through both layers.  Dab with water to remove markings.

Step 4:  Now lay the top of the strawberry over the back piece - enclosing the top of the clip inside.

Sew around the edge of the strawberry - only through the two red layers.

Step 5:  Lay the light green piece of felt on top of the medium green piece.  Place them at the top of the strawberry and using green embroidery floss, stitch them onto the berry.  When you get to the stem part you will only be sewing through the green pieces.

Here's what the back should look like:

Doesn't that look "sweet"?

have a "berry" good day

*couldn't help it*

jessica

Simple Fruit Galette

My mom and sister are visiting this weekend, and Saturday night after we enjoyed some Chicken and Dumplings we were in the mood for something sweet.  I had a refrigerated Pilsbury Pie Crust in the frig (those are THE BEST pre-made pie crusts) - so I whipped this simple galettte.  It was delicious!
In a bowl combine:
2 apples, thinly sliced
some strawberries, blueberries - whatever berries you have on hand
1/3 cup of sugar
1 T of corn starch
1/2 tsp of salt

Preheat the oven to 375.  Unroll the pie crust onto a cookie sheet (I placed it on top of a piece of aluminum foil for easy clean up).  Pour the fruit mixture out onto the middle of the pie crust.  Fold up the edges of the pie crust - pleating them as you go.

In a small bowl whisk an egg and some half and half.  Brush it onto the pie crust, then sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Bake it for about an hour until it's all juicy and beautiful - rotating it after 30 minutes.  Let it cool for several minutes, then serve with a tall glass of cold milk or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Yum!

Hope you all had a great weekend - we spent most of it in the fabric store or gathered around the cutting table - super fun!!  I'll show you something I made tomorrow - along with a tutorial so you can make your own.  Talk to you then!
jessica

Sweetheart Fruit Salad

Here's a quick, healthy, festive treat to serve your sweetie on Valentine's Day!

Red-skinned Apples

Strawberries

Blood (we like to just call them Red) Oranges

Shredded Coconut (frozen or fresh)

Peel and slice the oranges, then slice the apple and strawberries.  Put it all in a bowl and sprinkle with the shredded coconut.  Yum yum!

have a great weekend,

jessica