Tag: snack

Pat’s White Chocolate Scones

Pat and her husband were hosting the coffee hour after the church service one morning several years ago. On the table were some scones with a bowl of yellow pudding next to them. Pat corrected my assumption about the pudding. “It’s lemon curd,” she told me, “and it’s good on top of the scones.”

It is a wonderful combination. I asked for the recipes and Pat obliged. When I asked where she got them, she told me that she could not remember but that it was a long time ago. She said that she and some friends get together regularly and bring foods to share. Her scones and lemon curd have been enjoyed here in New Richmond, up north at Telemark and other places where she and her friends have gathered.

I can believe that Pat’s scones are popular with her friends. This is an easy recipe that you need to try.

INGREDIENTS:

For the scones:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar plus extra for sprinkling
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 large egg
1/2 cup half & half or whole milk plus a little for brushing
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 square white chocolate or a half cup of white chocolate bits
1/2 cup fresh berries (optional)

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 375º and grease a baking sheet.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Chop the butter into chunks and use a fork or pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour mixture until you have coarse crumbs about the size of small peas. Chop the white chocolate square into small pieces or use a half cup of white chocolate bits and mix them with the flour. If you are adding berries, stir them in at this time as well.

Beat an egg and stir it into the half and half along with the almond extract, then blend the liquid into the dry ingredients until they are barely moistened.

Roll or pat the dough to about three-fourths of an inch thick and cut triangle-shaped scones or just drop the dough onto the greased baking sheet. If you are dropping the scones, use your fingers to neaten them. Brush the scones with milk and sprinkle them lightly with sugar. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes until the scones are lightly touched with brown.

Serve with lemon curd so guests can add an extra taste sensation to their scones.

For the lemon curd:

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 T corn syrup
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

PROCEDURE:

Cut the butter into chunks and set it aside in a bowl.

Whisk the sugar and eggs together in a saucepan over low heat. Add the syrup, lemon juice and butter to the pan and raise the heat to medium until the butter starts to melt, then reduce the heat to low. Keep stirring until the curd has thickened and continue cooking and stirring until it begins to steam. Do not let it boil. Remove the pan from the heat and stir for a half minute, then put the curd into a bowl for serving or seal it in jars for storage in the refrigerator.

NOTES: Pat told me that she usually uses fresh raspberries or blueberries in her scones. She also said that reconstituted lemon juice tastes fine in the curd.

When Pat brings scones for the coffee hour, they are always drop scones, and they disappear as fast as she can put them on the napkins. People in our church recognize a good thing when they see that Pat is serving her scones.

Super Easy Garlic Buns

Unless you are fortunate enough to have a son like one of our great nephews when he was young, you are going to end up with extra hot dog buns from time to time. When Nate was about nine, he stopped eating most things. Meat was especially out of the question and he had never liked vegetables anyway.

What he did like was hot dog buns covered with ketchup, and that’s what he ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He drank milk, so his diet included four of the five food groups: grain (flour), legumes (soybean oil), fruit (tomatoes) and milk. His parents took this dietary phase with equanimity, and after a year or two Nate one day decided to add white chicken to his list of acceptable foods which had already grown to include hamburger buns and plain white bread.

When I heard of this preference for white foods, I wondered if he had been mistakenly swapped with a Scandinavian baby when he was discharged from the nursery. If he had insisted on mayonnaise with the buns, that might have been the explanation, but his preference for ketchup ruled that out.

Anyway, Nate’s mother did not have to worry about what to do with leftover hot dog buns. With Nate around, there never were any leftover buns. He was a growing boy with a healthy appetite.

However, like many people we know, we often end up with extra hot dog buns. We usually buy three dogs at a meat market or one pound packages of hot dogs at the supermarket. The packages we buy today have two separate pouches with four dogs in each, so we can toss one in the freezer.

Buns, alas, are always sold in packages of eight or ten. One can freeze buns of course, but they take up lots of space in the freezer and are often forgotten by the husband who is sent out to buy hot dogs for supper. Contrary to what one might suppose, frozen hot dog buns do not last forever. They really are not very good even after only six or seven months.

Here is a quick way to turn those extra hot dog buns into a delicious appetizer that you and your friends will enjoy.

INGREDIENTS:

Hot dog buns
Butter
Powdered garlic
Dried basil
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese
Dried oregano

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350º and melt a tablespoon of butter.

Separate and brush the buns with the melted butter and put them on a plate or other work surface. Sprinkle them with garlic powder, basil, and shredded mozzarella cheese. Top with a little grated Parmesan cheese and finish with a light sprinkling of oregano.

Put the buns on a baking sheet and bake them for about twelve minutes or until the cheese begins to brown.

Serve the buns warm from the oven.

NOTES: You can substitute olive oil for the butter. There are of course other ways to use the extra buns. For instance, you can dry them and make bread crumbs to top your next casserole or add to the hamburger when you make a meatloaf, but you won’t have any leftovers if you make garlic buns.