Katie’s Strawberry Scones
I don’t know who Katie is, but her scones are GREAT!!!! This was one of those recipes that I saw and right away knew I had to make. I got the recipe off of a new cooking blog I found last week: Kelly Cooks…and Other Amazing Feats. I had fun browsing thro’ her other recipes too.
One thing that grabbed me about these scones was that they take fresh strawberries. We don’t have fresh strawberries around here yet, but I’ve still been getting them regularly because they’re perpetually on sale at the grocery store. And that has got to be one of my favorite fruits, especially cut up and mixed with sugar. As the season wears on and I’ve had lots of strawberries and foods with strawberries in them, I get over my craving, but for now, strawberries it is. Second to chocolate… which of course is a helpless non-stop year-round craving.
Katie’s Strawberry Scones
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (depending on how ripe your strawberries are) I used 2 1/4 cups.
1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1 egg
1/4 cup yogurt (I used strawberry yogurt.)
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp. orange zest (I didn’t have oranges on hand, so I skipped this.)
1 cup fresh strawberries, diced
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, combine egg, yogurt, milk, zest; whisk to combine thoroughly and set aside. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, powder, salt, and whisk to combine. Using pastry cutter and two knives, cut butter into flour until all pieces are smaller than pea-sized. Add strawberries, and toss to coat.
Add wet ingredients to dry and mix in lightly with fork until dough just comes together. Turn dough out onto well-floured work surface and pat into large ball. Cut the dough ball in half.
Shape half of the dough into a flat disk shape and cut into 8 slices. Place on baking sheet and repeat with other half of dough. Sprinkle tops of scones with sugar. I shaped the disks right on the baking sheet. One thing I wasn’t sure about is if the wedges were supposed to be separate or still in a circle for baking. But it turned out great like this!
Place in the oven. Bake until slightly brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a baking sheet for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
I think they’re best if you eat them while they’re still warm. To serve, I cut one in half and spread butter inside, then put a dollop of whipped topping on top. Just delicious!!!
These got rave reviews around here from all of us! I’d like to experiment a little with using different yogurt flavors and maybe even different fruits, in addition to or instead of the strawberries. Also, I’ll bet the orange zest really adds something too. I want to be sure and have that on hand next time.
Carrot Pancakes - Out of My Comfort Zone Cooking #4
Does ‘carrot pancakes’ strike you as odd? It did me, for 2 reasons: 1. The thought of carrots in pancakes. and 2. These pancakes do not get served with syrup… there is a cream cheese mixture that goes on top of them instead. All my life, pancakes have gotten served with syrup. Sometimes with peanut butter underneath the syrup, but always with syrup. If we’d decide to put jam on them instead, that was not the norm.
This recipe actually sounds really good. It’s got pecans in it… YUM! and it’s got cinnamon and brown sugar in it and that cream cheese spread sounds really good!!! And they are really good, except the carrots kind of wreck them, which is unfortunate because that’s the main ingredient.
Carrot Pancakes - from the 2003 Quick Cooking Annual Cookbook
1 1/4 cups flour
2 Tbsp. finely chopped pecans (I didn’t chop them very fine, I like running into chunks)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup grated carrots
1 tsp. vanilla
Cream Cheese Spread:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Dash ground cinnamon
In a bowl, combine the first 6 ingredients. Combine the egg, brown sugar, milk, carrots, and vanilla; mix well.
Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened.
Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls into a greased hot griddle.
Mmmmm! Look at all those chunks! …too bad so many of the chunks are carrots, huh?
Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes;
cook until second side is golden brown.
Place the cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla, in a blender or food processor; cover and process until smooth. Transfer to a bowl; sprinkle with cinnamon.
Serve with pancakes. Yield: 4 servings. This recipe makes 11 pancakes.
Next time, and I think there might be a next time, I would put in a few more pecans and considerably less carrots. They were fun to try for something different. Lexi (5) wouldn’t touch them with a 10′ pole (and I sounded excited about them to her, carrots and all), but Tiffany (2) downed a whole pancake like nothing. Shannon didn’t get a chance to taste them because he was at work, but I think his take on them would’ve been similar to Lexi’s.
Edit: I tried these again later and replaced the cup of carrots with 1/3 cup of pumpkin and doubled the pecans, but kept everything else the same. I think I should’ve added nutmeg too. Anyway, they were delicious!
I’m actually having alot of fun with this Out of My Comfort Zone series. It’s fun trying stuff I’d never try otherwise. Next week, I’m planning to try a lettuce salad with fruit and maybe nuts in it.
Make these danish pastries for breakfast tomorrow morning!
An easy yummy-sounding recipe showed up in my email Inbox on Tuesday. It was from my cousin-in-law, Sharon. Is cousin-in-law a proper term? I don’t know, it sounds strange. Anyway, she’s married to my cousin. Not like you need to know that or anything. Thanks for the recipe, Sharon. They were easy and fast and delicious. And I had fun playing around with them too… bonus pictures at the end.
It only takes 4 ingredients. I like recipes like that because there’s more of a chance that I’ll have everything on hand! Although, yesterday, I wanted to make potato salad (way more than 4 ingredients) and I had everything except milk! Really, who runs out of milk?! I did have chocolate milk, but I didn’t think that would work too good. Anyway, that has gotta be one of my biggest cooking pet peeves… going to make something and not having all the stuff. That’s why I need to live nextdoor to the grocery store.
So, here’s our easy 4-ingredient recipe.
Cherry Cheese Danish
1 tube (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls
4 Tbsp. cream cheese, softened
1 cup cherry pie filling (or your choice) I used strawberry.
1/2 cup vanilla frosting
Separate crescent dough into four rectangles. Place on an ungreased baking sheet; seal perforations.
Spread 1 tablespoon cream cheese onto each rectangle.
Top each with 1/4 c. pie filling.
Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes. Place frosting in a microwave-safe bowl; heat on high for 15-20 seconds. Drizzle over warm pastries. I didn’t have frosting, so I mixed 2 Tbsp butter, about 2 Tbsp. milk, about 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar, and a bit of vanilla. That made about exactly 1/2 cup!
Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers (if there are any 
). Yield: 4 servings.
I think I should’ve let them cool a bit more before glazing. It all ran together and you can’t see the striping anymore.
Here’s a note that Sharon wrote at the end: I don’t usually have vanilla frosting on hand, so I make my own powdered sugar glaze. I add almond extract for cherry pie filling, a little cinnamon for apple, lemon for blueberry, nutmeg for peach, etc. Don’t you just love that sentence? She’s such a good creative cook! Wish I’d think of stuff like that! They’re quick and perfect for a special Sunday morning breakfast, or for company, or for just anyhow with coffee. And they’re even good made light, which I usually do (reduced fat crescent rolls and cream cheese).
Bonus:
I decided to play with them a bit…
We have a regular flat one, a pinwheel, a turnover, and a spiral. The spiral turned out to have way too much filling in it and made a mess when I rolled it up (like a little jelly roll). The turnover and spiral should’ve been baked a few minutes longer.
The pinwheel was my favorite (not for taste… they all tasted the same). It was easy to do and looked a bit fancier. Next time, I think I could make them neater, too. It was Tiffany’s favorite too. She said, “I want dat one” about 10 times while I was taking the pictures and her little pointer finger kept coming into view in my camera window whenever she’d say it.
These pastries are so good! Perfect with a cup of coffee! I just made them for the girls and I, and since the girls eat about as much as a chickadee does, there was actually some left over. The next morning, I ate another one and instead of warming it up, I ate it refrigerator cold and it was really good that way too!
Try them! Try them! Try them!
Ahhhh, this is the way to start a day! (and other rhymes)
…start it with raspberry cream cheese rolls and coffee!
Sometimes I wonder if I should try a post that’s in poem format. This would be a good one to do that on because the title rhymes… and that just happened, didn’t even try it. The best poems are ones that flow, that you can’t tell the poet was working hard to get it to rhyme. An example of working too hard to rhyme would be like this:
My friend and I met
this morning at eight.
Our coffee we drank
and our donuts we ate.
You just don’t say “our coffee we drank” and “our donuts we ate” in regular conversation, you say “we drank our coffee” and “we ate our donuts”. That is one of my pet peeves in poetry. I know it’s ‘legal’, but it just makes it sound so much more formal. It would be much better to say,
Coffee and donuts
and a friendly chat,
Breakfasts don’t get
much better than that.
I used to get a kick out of writing poems in my adolescent years. My favorite has always been a 6-line style where lines 1& 2 rhyme, 3&6 rhyme, and 4&5 rhyme. I don’t know what it’s called, kind of like a limerick, but not quite. Around 16, I wrote a whole poem consisting of about 10 stanzas in that style. The first stanza was:
In August we moved
To what actually proved
To be home at Valley View Orchard.
At first, work was fun,
But before all was done,
We thought we were seriously tortured.
…and so on it went, about life on our orchard.
My dad was/is great with poems. I still remember when I we were growing up, Dad would start making up a poem about this or that and just kept going and going for quite awhile, not having to pause to think of a rhyming word. It was amazing to me even at a young age how he could do that. Of course, the bar was pretty low because we were just kids and were thrilled with anything that rhymed.
Anyway, when I started this post, I had no clue I’d get into poems! So, instead of erasing the poem parts, I went up and added “(and other rhymes)” into the title. I was just posting to tell you that I made raspberry cream cheese rolls this morning AND that I finally have a new FAVORITE coffee mug once again! Here are both:
My friend, Shannon, from OH, sent me that coffee mug. It’s perfect. The ‘walls’ are thick, just how I like them. It’s heavy and solid. And the design is great. And she said that they’re hard to break… which is good! Did you know that I break more dishes than my 2 children do?! Sometimes I wonder if I’m clumsy. Anyway, it’s a Longaberger mug, if you’re interested in getting one. She tells me Longaberger mugs are the best. And I think I’m convinced.
And those raspberry cream cheese rolls (here is the link to the recipe), they are just the best! Seriously, try them! I just thought of it now, I got the recipe for these rolls from Shannon, too (same one that just gave me the mug). These rolls are easier than they look and the dough is SO nice to work with because it doesn’t stick to anything… not to the rolling pin, not to the counter, not to your hands. The raspberry filling is just regular pie filling from the grocery store (I put it into a plastic storage bag, cut a corner off, and pipe it on). It doesn’t have to be raspberry, in fact, this time I used strawberry. I put it in the food processor so there wouldn’t be big chunks. The cream cheese filling is from a bulk foods store in plastic bag tubes. BUT, Barb, if you’re reading this, you had asked a question about the cr. ch. filling if you don’t have a bulk foods store around. I made it from scratch this time just to experiment and it turned out great! I edited the post that the rolls are featured on and added that filling recipe.
So, now everyone, tell me what you had for breakfast in a comment! You can make it in poem form if you want to.
Here I’ll start:
My roll was first-rate
My coffee was great
And Shannon confirmed that when he ate his.
You may have guessed
These are the best
And I don’t care who your grandmother is!
Pancakes! Plus a bit of fun for the kids.
We eat pancakes alot. I make a batch, then put whatever we don’t eat in the freezer for quick breakfasts, usually warmed in the microwave, but the toaster works great too.
When I was growing up, we had pancakes alot. We children had the recipe memorized, but I also remember what it looked like. It was in an old Betty Crocker cookbook located at the top left-hand corner of the page. There was some batter splatters and flour stuck to the page. And the sugar in the recipe had a line through it. I remember one time when I was making them, I was feeling a little daring and put the sugar in. At 9 or 10 years old, I didn’t think about it that a little sugar wouldn’t make a huge difference and I was surprised when the pancakes looked and tasted the same.
Mom also used to make syrup. She’d make it, then pour it into 2 glass ‘Aunt Jemima’ syrup bottles. I always liked it better the second time because it was thicker and not so warm and runny. I still like my syrup thick and I don’t warm it up in the microwave (even though our plastic syrup bottle has a thing on the front that says ‘HOT’ after it’s warmed) because it’s too runny.
We got to talking about pancakes recently in family emails and my brother said they got a good recipe out of a local newspaper awhile ago and he makes them pretty often. He copied the recipe in an email and since I usually use the recipe on the side of the Bisquick box, I knew any recipe would be an improvement! So, I made them this morning.
My brother is a great chef. He made grilled salmon one time for our whole family and does lots of other grilling too. And that’s not all. One time, we all got together for a meal and this trifle appeared. The layers were picture-perfect, not crooked or varied thicknesses. I was complimenting my sister-in-law on it because I knew they brought it and because she’s a pro at making things look nice and attractive. She said, “Oh, I didn’t make it. Bruce did.” I really wish I’d have taken a picture of it. Anyway, they’re both great cooks and I can’t understand why they’re still slim and don’t weigh 300 pounds!
Pancakes
2 cups flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup butter (melted)
Mix first 5 ingredients together. Lightly beat eggs, buttermilk, and butter in a separate bowl.
Add milk mixture to flour mixture all at once and stir until just combined (should be a little lumpy and quite thick).
Can you hear the sizzle?
Yeah, I don’t use a measuring scoop to put the pancakes in the frying pan. I just pour, thus my pancakes are varied shapes and sizes, but we don’t mind.
Just look at the texture of these pancakes! They were so soft and fluffy and had visible air pockets. They tasted great too… probably partly because of the melted butter! Delicious! this recipe made 18 4″ pancakes (give or take an inch, depending which pancake you pick).
Now, for the fun part…
You may think I’m crazy, but this is what we do with pancakes around here. My girls haven’t eaten a normal round pancake for quite awhile.
Their plates.
My plate.
It really doesn’t take long at all to cut out shapes and it’s fun for them to eat and pick which shapes they want. And the scraps are kind of hard to spread peanut butter on, but they taste the same… believe me, I know!
P.S. Barb posted a Corn Chip Salad recipe that sounds wonderful in the comment section of the hard boiled egg post (Thanks, Barb!). Check it out! Who’s going to be the first to try it?
About Me
Hi! Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Kay. I'm from central Ohio. I love cooking and baking. Especially baking. It's therapeutic for me. I'm not a professional or gourmet cook by any means. I'm a Christian homemaker who happens to take pictures of some of the food I make. I have 2 little 'helpers'... Lexi (9) and Tiffany (5), who are young cooks in training. And I should mention Megan (born in June 2010), altho' she's not in training yet. She's more in charge of inside-the-cupboards demolition when she's in the kitchen. I don't do anything on the grill... that's where my husband Shannon comes in! He grills quite a bit, especially in the summer. So, sit back and enjoy browsing thro' the recipes. If you try some of them, I'd love to hear feedback on how you liked them! If you want to contact me, my email address is kay@kitchenscrapbook.com