TFF Meets Cook the Books

We’ve come to the end of another school year…and as usual, I’m working a lot of busy days preparing.  For some reason, since the pressure is off everyone else, they figure I’m in neutral mode too.  Ummm…no.  I’m in end-of-year-mode with tons of deadlines and reports being due and this, that, and a couple other things.  I tend to fall asleep relatively early these days! LOL!  So…When it comes to my cooking with various groups, I’m grateful for being with a couple that participation is flexible, and if I can get double duty out of anything, I will!  And so…Cook the Books and Tyler Florence Fridays are having a meeting this week!

Cook the Books has been reading A Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.  There are lots of foods lurking in the pages of this fantastical and magical book.  One item that kept coming up, that’s been a source of curiosity for me since I was a child reading another book that made reference to the same item…scones.  I’ve read many a recipe for scones, and have thought time and again that I’ll have to try that.  But today was the day.  The Belmont Stakes were running and fresh scones with hot coffee sounded just perfect.  Horse racing…scones…good match.

I’ve been cooking off and on with the ladies from Tyler Florence Fridays, but didn’t have a recipe trial ready for the Friday just past.  When the idea of fixing scones for Cook the Books came up, I immediately searched for “scones; Tyler Florence” and got a full list of replies.  There was a recipe for Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze that caught my eye.  The recipe was immediately available from The Food Network, and there were numerous reviews and little twists other cookies had used.  I knew I’d just bought blueberries and I had lemons as well…everything else was available with one minor exception…I only had 1 cup of heavy cream left.  Not to worry…I subbed out a few ounces of heavy cream for sour cream, and added 1/4 tsp. of baking soda to the mix.  Solved.

The recipe worked just as it was supposed to…much like a really moist biscuit dough…which, I suppose it pretty much is!  Somewhere along the line I’d read that frozen berries…not frozen berries from the freezer case, but fresh berries you’ve brought home from the market and frozen in their package, work great for recipes like this, because they hold up to handling as you work the dough.  That made a lot of sense.  The dough had to be formed, cut and transferred…was a little difficult because of it’s mixed medium – wet and crumbly at the same time.  It would be scary to work with fresh raw berries…surely they’d squash, so the frozen routine sounded ideal.  And it was. It held up to the forming, cutting and baking without giving off much juice that would have that strange chemical reaction of turning green.  Even where I cut through whole berries to shape the dough, there wasn’t a problem with the berry juice making things colorful.

The proof is in the eating though.  The scones have a very light and tender crumb.  They were strong enough to hold up to plating, but broke apart easily for eating out of hand.  The scone was buttery rich with just enough sweetness that a jam wasn’t needed.  We thought that any number of berries or fruits would work well in the base recipe.  I did make a bit of a change with the glaze.  After hearing about how much the recipe made, and it’s fluidity, I mixed 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 T+ 2 tsp.  lemon juice, and a grating of lemon zest.  We loved them for brunch or Sunday mornings.  I think I’d like to add a bit of lemon zest to the dough next time to promote the lemon essence a little deeper, but Tyler…this one’s a keeper!!