White Chocolate Almond Raspberry Scones

Everyone always says baking is a science and you have to follow a recipe exactly in order for it to turn out great. I, on the other hand, am always trying to prove this theory wrong. I think this recipe proves that you have some wiggle room when it comes to baking. To make these scones I started out with the cheddar dill recipe, reduced the salt, nixed the savory ingredients and added in a bunch of sweet goodness. They turned out PERFECT! I am seriously obsessed with these and hope you will give them a shot.

Cheddar Dill Scones

My friend Taylor, who happens to write an awesome design blog called Perfectly Taylor'd, recently started offering her interior decorating and design services on her blog. She offers the full range from making over your entire room to answering simple questions like 'what color should I paint'? What does this have to do with scones you may ask. Well, if I ever get a house down here in South Florida I am going to have a ton of questions and Taylor said she would answer my questions in exchange for a fresh baked batch of scones! So, I figured I better start now and find some good recipes for Taylor. Ohhh, the sacrifices I make for my friends! Baking and testing scones is such a tough job ;)

Camp Bagels

This idea came from a restaurant in DeLand, Florida where I went to undergrad. (Go Stetson!) I guess it is something they were served at camp when they were little.  It seemed like a strange combination of ingredients but I and everyone else who has tried them has liked them. You can even make these on those miniature bagels for a cute brunch or party food. I used to make them for my Christmas Cookie Swap brunch when I lived in Jacksonville (sniff sniff, miss you guys).

Grandma v. Good Housekeeping: A Banana Bread Bakeoff

I have always loved my grandma’s banana bread. It’s the one I grew up with and the one I judge all other banana breads against. As I was preparing to bake it I realized I had four bananas going brown on the counter and my recipe only needed two. So, I decided to put my grandma’s recipe to the test. I made both her recipe and one out of my GHK cookbook (circa 1965). While mixing up the dough I actually got pretty nervous. The GHK version looked so light and fluffy while my grandma’s looked dense and dark. After I baked them the nerves got worse! Again, the GHK version was a beautifully light yellow color that reminded me of yellow cake. My grandma’s was brown. Not a very exciting result for sure.  What had I done?! Had I just unintentionally insulted my grandma’s recipe?! Was she looking down from heaven chastising me with her look and signature phrase “Oh Boy”? Well, it turns out that beauty is in the eye of my belly.  That light & fluffy GHK recipe turned out to be unbearably dry and my grandma’s was just as good as I always remembered it, very moist with a great banana and vanilla undertone.  I asked Ron to do a blind taste test to make sure I wasn’t being biased and he agreed “the brown one is better”.  

 

So the winner of the first “Versus” challenge is My Grandma’s Banana Bread!  Oh Boy!

Ingredients

·         ¼ lb butter

·         1 cup sugar

·         2 eggs

·         2-3 bananas (smashed)

·         1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         4 tablespoons milk

·         1 teaspoon vanilla

·         ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

·         1 ½ cups flour (sifted)

Directions.  Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs. Combine powder, soda, vanilla and milk into butter mixture. Add bananas, nuts and flour. Crisco and flour pans. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350. 

Top is Grandma's / Bottom is GHK.

I really hope you enjoy! And if you want the GHK version just send me an email or leave me a comment and I will get it to you (but I don’t think you will like it, HA).

Buttermilk Scoop Biscuits

A few nights ago, I had the best intentions of making shrimp and cheddar grits with buttermilk biscuits for dinner. When Ron got home from work we made up a few batches of mango peach daiquiris and went for a float in the pool. Ever notice that time seems to go a lot faster when you are drinking daiquiris and floating in the pool? When we came in it was close to 8:30 and we were starving.  Luckily shrimp and grits is an easy meal, right?! Wrong, not that night!  I ended up with some sort of grits soup (Ron didn’t realize I was halving the recipe when he read me the liquid ingredients). Those went straight down the drain. I had an old-bay boil over on top of the impossible to clean glass top stove in our apartment and I was out of self-rising flour to make the biscuits. (As I read that back to myself it doesn’t seem nearly as bad or dramatic as it was in the moment.)  I wasn’t willing to accept total failure though and quite to my surprise I made up this “scoop” biscuit recipe that seemed to salvage our otherwise bland meal of boiled shrimp and some steamed veggies.  It is not your traditional biscuit but it was yummy and is probably a good recipe to keep around for when you are out of the ingredients for 'real' biscuits. Two lessons I learned: (1) make dinner before daiquiris and (2) a ‘disaster’ dinner can be saved with a buttermilk biscuit.

Ingredients

1 ¾ cup all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon of salt

3 ½ teaspoons baking powder (plus a pinch more)

1 heaping teaspoon sugar

2 Tbsp cold butter

2 Tbsp Crisco

¾ buttermilk (make sure to shake it before you pour it)

Directions

Preheat oven to 500. Stir together dry ingredients. Cut in butter and Crisco. Pour in buttermilk and stir just until dry ingredients are moist. Scoop the biscuits out with an ice cream scoop on to a baking sheet. Bake at 500 for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.