May 11

Cranberry and orange scones

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So, the sekrit project:

Scones

Cranberry scones! Oh so tasty and yummy. Basically, my workplace has this baking competition where entrants bake to a theme, and the theme this time was “red”. (I lost the round to a strawberry tart, but it doesn’t matter, since I have a shiny new recipe to add to my arsenal)

Same recipe as orange and chocolate scones, except substitute the chocolate with 100g of dried cranberries soaked in water for a bit (ETA; after a second round of baking, I would skip the soaking unless your cranberries are really, really dry).

If you’re tired of the food porn, I have a guest post over at Aidan Moher’s A Dribble of Ink, where I discuss my experience in drawing inspiration from non-Western cultures. One thing I did forget to add to the post was the importance of acknowledging the source culture and material: a few handy links to books or websites people can consult can do wonders. (obviously, acknowledging and crediting your referents as well, but that’s kind of obvious).

That’s it. Off to do a crit and then work some more on the novella.

Jun 25

Orange and chocolate scones

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So, I did promise the recipe for the scones…

Below are my VD scones (though I didn’t put enough baking soda in, and ended up making oversized cookies. They are supposed to look a bit better than this normally):

Scones

 

Orange and chocolate scones
Print
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Total time: 50 mins
Serves: 8-9 scones
A dessert that combines two of my favourite flavours: chocolate, and orange.
Ingredients
  • 230 g flour
  • 11 g baking soda
  • 60g butter
  • 1 teaspoon caster sugar
  • 145 mL of milk
  • 1 tablespoon Orange Blossom water
  • 120g chocolate, chopped into coarse bits
  • Zest of half an orange, chopped into tiny bits
  • Pinch of salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven at 200°C. Leave the butter out to soften a bit.
  2. Sift the flour, the sugar and the baking soda in a bowl, and gently rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the milk little by little, until you have a spongy dough.
  3. Work in the orange blossom water, the orange zest and the chocolate chips until the dough is smooth and uniform.
  4. Grease a baking sheet. Divide the dough into 8-9 parts and shape it like cylinders (roughly 5cm across, 1cm thick). Or, if it’s too much trouble, just put dollops of the dough onto the baking sheet :-)
  5. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, until the scones are risen and light golden in colour.

 

Enjoy :=)

(I originally was looking for a chocolate and orange scone recipe after eating very tasty ones in Montreal, but couldn’t find one that worked on the net. In the end, I adapted this from the plain oven scones recipe contained in Scottish Teatime Recipes by Johanna Mathie)