Friday Fun Food: Scones

Might I invite you for a tea and some scones? (imagine a very strong english accent)

Some weeks ago, bloggy fried Kristeta twitted about her having some coffee and scones.  I thought scones! very english :)  I may have not mentioned this before but I love many things about UK.  I love their tea, I love their accent. I love many of their city structures and most of all, I love the accent (although I do love australian accent more than english heh). Don't you love the way they say something like "noi" whenever they say no or know? .. anyways.... I wanted to talk about scones and not the english accent... so moving on...

Could there be anything more english than scones?  As I was saying, bloggy friend Kristeta twitted about coffee and scones... and then on the same day while browsing a Thermomix magazine, I saw a recipe for scones.  I doin't knoi about you-i but for mey, It's definitley a soign that I muhst maike myself sum skohns! (Excuse me for trying hard on my english accent).

I got super busy these days but finally, I got the chance of making sum skohns! (and this is like a couple of weeks ago and only got the time to blog about it.. uhm now)  An I haf just got to shaire it with youi! ;-) 

I did this using Thermomix.  I am pretty sure that this can be done with something like Kitchen Aid or a hand mixer. 

The ingredients are the following:


flour

sugar

cold milk

cold butter cut into cubes

chemical yeast

salt

 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC

2. Put in the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and butter in the mixing bowl

3. Mix for 5 seconds/speed 5 on thermomix.  If using Kitchen Aid or hand mixer, use medium-high speed but do not over mix.  The consistency we are looking for is like a sticky breadcrumbs.

4. Add milk and mix for 20 seconds/speed 6 on thermomix.  For Kitchen or hand mixer, use medium speed until the dough comes together.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl. Do not knead.  Using a rolling pin, carefully and slowly flatten it out up to 3cm thick.  Tip: I put baking sheet on the table to lessen the mess and then lightly floured the baking sheet.

6. Using  a round cutter, gently press it on the dough to cut out the scones.  Tip:  Dip the cutter on the flour each time to prevent the scones from sticking to the cutter.



7.  The left over dough can be pressed together again and make another batch.  The result will not be the same though but still good enough.  Every time the left over dough is pressed together, the sponginess of the dough lessens.

8. Place the cut out scones on a baking pan covered with baking sheet.  Bake for about 12-15minutes at 200ºC

9.  Be patient and wait.  Prepare some nice tea to accompany your about to be ready scones.

10.  Scones should be done when it's light golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on top (in Tagalog, kapag pinitik sa ibabaw :-D )

11. Serve with your favorite jam and/or cream cheese or whatever suits your fancy!







Homemade Fiber-packed Yummy Crackers - what else can you ask for?

This is what I love about blogging.  One can get inspired in so many ways and learn about so many things.  It's like travelling the world!

A long time friend has started blogging, yay! as I visited her blog, I came across one Mia who posted a recipe inspired by another blogger, Faith.  The wonderful recipe is for making a homemade rosemary crackers.  Ah, I love crackers.  In the Philippines, we have a lot of different crackers with different flavors and I love of them.  As I stumble upon this post I immediately said I must do this.

For one, it is healthy, easy to make and the ingredients are all available in my kitchen.  Plus, I was hoping the little one who needs a lot of fiber would love this.  Then I know I can play with the ingredients using different flavor, etc.  But for the first time trying this, I followed the original recipe.  I was too excited, I did this the following day after I read the blog :-D

So, below is how I followed Faith's recipe :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of oats

1/2 cup of almond meal*

~tablespoon of rosemary (dried or fresh)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

1-2 tablespoons water (I ended up using 3 tablespooons water)

I used toasted almonds because it's what I have in my kitcchen.  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup almonds meal so I just put the peeled almonds in my measuring cup.. I let it overflow and then processed it.

Until it looks like this.  Maybe a few more seconds of processing wouldn't hurt.

Then the oatmeal. I used the traditional one.  Processed it until there's no more whole grain.

I used matured cheese. If you live in a country like I do that uses grams instead of ounces, 3 ounces is about 85 grams. I used about 95 grams of cheese. I love cheese! I grated these babies and mixed put together with the rest of the ingredients.

Then I just mixed all the other ingredients minus the water.

I slowly added the water while the blades are spinning.  I ended up using 3 tablespoon of water.  I think the consistency was just right.

Sorry I didn't have a photo of the dough after it was processed but it's very similar to what Faith has:

Only that mine looks finer. I think I processed the oats and the almonds too finely.

Then I put it on a baking sheet ocvered with parchment paper.  I flattened it a little bit with my palm and then covered it with another parchment paper then proceeded to flatten it even more with a rolling pin. My rolling was too big though for my baking sheet and it's just couldn't roll on all sides so I ditched the rolling pin and took a round glass and used it instead.  After working on it for some minutes, I think it turned out fine.

It is important to make sure that dough is evened out well otherwise, it will not get cooked evenly. Like what happened to mine.  Part of it got burned more than the other parts.  See, I was to in a hurry to get it done... patience is a virtue I must remind myself a little more often.

Put it in the oven preheated to 350ºF or 180ºC and cook for about 15-20 mins.  15mins is too short for me.  The dough was still soft to touch so, I added 2mins then added another 4 minutes which I think is too much.  It does seem like my crackers were cooked more than it should but they're still good anyways.  Next time I do this,  I'll probably let it sit in the oven for 18mins tops.  Then let it cool and see if it will harden more.

The output!!

Sorry I don't have a nice presentation like Faith and Mia does as I am kind of multitasking when I was doing this yummy crackers.  But I swear on my long beautiful legs (I kid!) that they are really good!

They also taste really nice with cream cheese, marmalade, peanut butter!

Experiment with them! Experiment with the ingredients!  You can use other herbs, lemon zest, maybe other dried fruit similar to almonds?  Use your favorite cheese! Doesn't have to be only cheddar.  Next time I will try to use local cured or semi-cured local cheese here.  Spain has a lot of yummy type of cheese :)

 Go ahead, try this - there'll be no regrets.