This is my first "Sorry, it's Lenten season, I can't bake without tasting so I am not following the right TWD-recipe-rotation"-entry. I found at least five recipes in Dorie's book where omitting the sugar probably won't make a big difference: Corn &Pepper Muffins, Basic Biscuits, Cheddar-Apple Scones , Sweet Potato Biscuits and the Parmesan Sablés. They all have only 2-3 tabelspoons sugar. Some other scones (especially the Toasted Almond Scones and the Cream Scones) also call for very limited teaspoons of sugar, so it should be possible to leave it out. But the latter two sound almost a bit like a sweet treat and I can better imagine pairing them with nut-spread, chocolate chips or honey than with savory spreads. Lucky me, I love, no, I adore scones and biscuits, no matter if more on the sweet or the savory side.
I only need four recipes for the weeks to come until Easter. I recognized that not all of them have already been in the recipe rotation, and I am afraid it only counts when I "catch-up" with somehting all the other eager and gifted bakers made in the almost two years before I joined.
So I started with the Cheddar-Apple Scones. It was originally due for July 1st 2008 and chosen by Karina of The Floured Apron. The recipe can be found on her blog or on page 32 of Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From my home to yours".
When I woke up on Sunday morning I decided to get up and bake them for breakfast. Can a Sunday morning breakfast start better than with fresh, warm scones?
In the end, I dawdled away with whatever stuff, and didn't get started before almost lunch time. (Lunch-time on week-days. I believe there is a different time-zone applying for weekdays and week-ends. So it was still like Brunch-time on a weekend. And can a Sunday Brunch start better than with fresh, warm scones? :o])
I followed the recipe as written except that I used a bit more corn-meal and left out some all-purpose (spelt) flour instead, because I started to like corn-meal. Not that I had ever used it (or heard of it...) before I started with TWD, what is not really long ago, but since I really started to appreciate it for the texture it brings about, and I even have the feeling it slightly influences the colour. I switched only 1/4 cup.
I am a big cheese-in-any-ways lover and cheddar is an all-time favourite. I had some grated cheddar left from, uh, no idea. Just had it.
The scones turned out won-der-ful. I made several batches. For the first batch I used tablespoons to spoon them on the baking sheet. I often need less baking-time than indicated in the recipes, no idea why. I got them out the oven just in the very last minute before they turned dark-brown/black. I saved them, but it was nearly too late. And I found out why the recipe asks for grated or very finely chopped dry apples, for what I was too lazy. I only made medium sized chunks, and the pieces on the surface turned very dark. No, that's not true - they actually turned black.(But it didn't harm the overall picture too much.)
For the second batch I used a silicone mold for six minis with flower-shaped bottoms. The second batch I pulled out the oven too early. Hm, alright, I thought, I even have enough batter for a third batch. For this last rack I used a teaspoon to bring them on the baking sheet, because I thought they could be served as tea-biscuits at the office, and therefore it would be better if the scones were mini-scones.
And, what can I say, the third better turned out just fine.
But the best of all was to eat a first test-piece of the very first batch while the second was in the oven. To brake them up, and see them steam. Per-fect.(I don't have to speak about the taste, do I? Won-der-ful!! Maybe, I thought, some nuts would not have been too bad. But you know what? They are just perfect without. Combining a lot of tastes can be fun, but it's not always necessary to include everything and all that could possibly also go with it. Sometimes more pureness is just adequate.)
Even more lucky me, I used all the wonderful cup- and spoon-measures I brought home from NYC, so I did not waste this huge amount of time I used to for converting measures into grams. Yeah! Baking is even more fun like that!!
