Strawberry Scones

If I could sleep, I probably wouldn't bake so much.  Such is my curse.
But I couldn't sleep yesterday after 5am, so I baked a loaf of bread (mixed up several days ago) and then mixed up some scones as well.  Today your benefit of my sleeplessness is that I have time to photograph and write up this entry.   Enjoy.

I still have half the batter in the fridge... and I'll bake it tomorrow for breakfast.

Here's the easy recipe:

2 cups Whole Wheat pastry flour
4 T sugar
11/2 t baking powder
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

1 stick butter
2/3 cup milk
1 pt strawberries, diced

put all the dry ingredients into a food processor.  Process.  Cut the butter into pads, add them, and process until it is well mixed.  I have a really small food processor, so it sticks to the sides, and I shake it to get the dough off the sides.  Go ahead, shake your food processor like you are mad at it.

Dump that into a mixing bowl, add the milk and turn it over until it is wet.  mix in the strawberry chunks.

Take a sheet of waxed paper (or parchment paper, or plastic wrap) and dump the dough-ball onto it, flatten it slightly, and chill.  10 minutes works, 20 is better.

Warm your oven to 200C / 400F
Pull out the chilled dough, and roll it out between 2 pieces of waxed paper until it is about 5-7mm thick (okay, 1/2 inch for you Imperial types).  Peel off the top sheet of waxed paper, and then cut it into triangle/diamond shaped chunks.  Transfer to a baking sheet. I put mine on parchment paper, because then I never have to scrape burnt things off my cookie sheets.

Bake for about 18 minutes.

Eat... enjoy.

More bread experiments

After baking several weeks with the Tartine baking book.  In an effort to try different things, I tried the recepie from the Artisanal bread in 5 minutes a day book.  It calls for a different baking technique, the use of pizza stones.  I went the cheapo route, and went down to Home Depot and bought some unglazed mexican tiles.  They only came in a 12-pack, and I think I paid less than $10 for the pack of 12x12 tiles.





I used a different dough recipie, from the 5-minute Artisan bread book.  It uses packaged yeast.  The stuff really rises easily, but it tastes weird after eating bread leavened with natural (sourdough) yeast.  It is hard to describe exactly, but I'd say it tastes more like store bought white bread that you get in a plastic bag.  Even though I used Guisto's Organic Ultimate Performer flour.   I had thought that the flour was the primary critical ingredient.  Nope... the yeast matters too!

Okay, so the loaves look nice, and the crust is pretty good.  One of the 2 stones cracked.   I guess that might be the difference between a store bought pizza stone, and my cheapo solution.  Then again, I have 11 more of them, all for less than your $35 pizza stone.  

Sucessful Tartine loaves

A couple weeks ago we all went to a cyclocross race. Mike pulled a couple of loaves out of a brown paper bag, and Maria immediately zeroed in. "These aren't from the grocery store, are they?" Mike explained his sideline business teaching people how to bake, where the proceeds go to charity.

I Bought the Tartine Bread Book for myself for Christmas, got some ultimate performer flour from Giusto's, and then I studied for a few days before trying.














It seemed a bit intimidating after the first read-through, what with talk of bench-rest, bulk-rise, and the whole need for a dutch oven. I thought I was going to try to start Tuesday morning, but my timing was all off, and my leaven (the bit of sourdough starter mixed with some water and flour to get the yeast culture ready for baking) wasn't ready to use when I was ready to start. Then I waited too long, and it went incredibly sour.

So I threw that out and assault number two started yesterday morning. My levin was ready when I got home from the field-trip with the kiddies. So I dove in, followed the steps in the book, and this morninng I baked the loaves.

All I can say now is Wow... and give me another slice of that bread! Maria was skeptical if it was really worth all this work, and then she had her first slice this morning at breakfast, and she's sold. As long as I keep the kitchen clean, she wants more.