Cranberry Orange Scones

Has anyone noticed I haven't posted in almost a week? I guess not. :) Well, I haven't.

While I have been visiting as many blogs as possible, I just have not been able to post anything this last week!You see, both my laptop and my internet enabled phone decided to call it quits at the same time. I think they planned it! And while they sit happily in the repair shop, I have no option but to use the desktop computer, and this chair gives me a horrid backache! And the spare phone I'm using (and I am grateful for the phone!), does not connect to the internet.So until my laptop returns, you won't be hearing from The Harried Cook as much!

Yesterday was one of those days. I just HAD to bake. I didn't care what. I just had the need to bake. I did a quick inventory of what was available in my limited pantry, and Googled some combinations that made sense to me. This scone recipe from Ina Garten was one of the first to show up. To  be honest, I have not had very good experiences with scones. Well, I haven't eaten that many scones in my life, but the ones I have eaten haven't been very good. So I was quite nervous trying this out.

This recipe was a pleasant surprise! Great flavors, flaky crumbly texture, only mildly sweet, and the yummy glaze made it just perfect! I made only half the recipe, and still ended up with more scones than I needed. Next time I'll try half of this.

Cranberry Orange Scones
Adapted from Ina Garten's recipe on Food Network

Ingredients
250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour (plus 2 tablespoon)
30g (1/8 cup) sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Zest of 1 orange
175g butter, cold & diced
3 medium eggs, beaten lightly
120ml (1/2 cup) heavy cream
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
Demerara sugar, or additional granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Combine 250g of flour, the sugar, baking powder, salt and the orange zest in your mixer bowl. Stir to combine.
3. Add the diced butter, and run the mixer on the lowest setting till most of the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, with some larger bits of butter.
4. Remove 2 tbsp of the beaten egg mixture into a smaller bowl and set aside to use as egg wash.
5. Into the remaining egg, stir in the cream, mixing until combined.
6. Pour this egg-cream mixture into the flour mixture, and continue mixing on 'low' until the dough just comes together. It will be lumpy, but that's just fine!
7. Stir the additional 2 tbsp of flour with the cranberries in a bowl. Add this mixture into the dough and stir in until the cranberries are evenly distributed. Don't over-mix.
8. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface. Roll out the dough about 3/4 inch thick. You might see bits of butter peeking out of the dough, but that's just fine.
9. Cut into circles using a round cookie cutter. Transfer the circles to a baking tray/dish.
10. Gather the remaining dough, roll out, and cut into scones. Continue until you've used up all the dough.
11. Add about a teaspoon of water to the reserved 2 tbsp of egg. Use this mixture to brush the tops of all the scones.
12. Sprinkle the scones with plain or demerara sugar, and bake about 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden brown, and scones feel firm to the touch.
13. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the tray for about 15 minutes.
14. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, and drizzle over with the fresh orange glaze.

Fresh Orange Glaze 
Ingredients

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp powdered sugar

4 tsp freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 tsp orange zest

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients, and stir until smooth and lump-free.

2. Add more sugar or juice to adjust the consistency, if desired.

The flavors of cranberry and orange really work well together. And while I've always eaten scones with jam and cream, or butter and jam, I didn't need that extra sweetness with these scones because of the glaze. It added just the right amount of sweetness. 

After dropping the jam, I felt it would be just plain wrong to drop the tea too. After all, tea and scones are made for each other. And while I am not a big tea or coffee drinker, I decided to respect the scone and made myself a hot cup of strawberry-mango tea. And after settling my little girl down for her late afternoon nap, I settled myself on the couch with a cup of tea, a scone (okay, okay, I had two!), and a good book. It was a wonderful afternoon!

I must report, as I always do, that everyone enjoyed this recipe - my husband, my daughter and the dog. Jerry gave it four barks, and that's a pretty high rating! 

Pomegranate Pound Cake

I made it to post #50. Whew!

I wanted to bake a cake to mark the 50 post milestone. I contemplated baking a many-layered cake, and frosting it and decorating it with some pretty flourishes. But after a lot of plotting and scheming, I finally ended up with this. I guess, on some level, I really wanted the cake to reflect my cooking style. Simple, but with oodles of flavor.

I really like this cake. And my little girl, Aimee, has been walking around the house all day, chanting 'cake, cake, cake', and has eaten more than her fair share already. I can safely say she likes it too. My husband, well he has never been a fan of what he calls 'plain' cakes. Give him a dark, moist, rich chocolate cake, and he's happy. But he did eat a slice or two of this cake, and declared it 'very nice'! That's a high compliment, mind you!

So, here is my favorite pound cake recipe. I made one 6" bundt cake, and 1 mini-loaf (to give away). You could bake this in a 9" bundt tin or you could even make little pink-glazed cupcakes, garnished with edible red pomegranate 'jewels'! Imagine how cute those cupcakes would look!

Pomegranate Pound Cake
Ingredients
180g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g (1 cup) sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lime zest

185g (1 1/2 cup) all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp baking soda

125ml creme fraiche
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds/arils (plus a handful for garnish)

Method
1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Sift the flour with the baking soda, and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Add the zest, the vanilla, and the four egg yolks, and continue creaming for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the flour-soda mixture in three parts, alternating with the creme fraiche added in two parts. (You start and end with the flour mixture)
6. In a clean bowl, using a clean whisk (or whisk attachments) beat the egg whites until stiff.
7. Fold the egg whites into the batter gently until completely incorporated.
8. Gently stir in the pomegranate arils.
9. Pour batter into greased and floured baking tin, and bake until the top is lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
10. Remove from the oven, and allow to rest in the baking tin for 10 minutes.
11. Turn out of the pan, and allow it to cool completely on a cooling rack.
12. When cool, drizzle over the pomegranate glaze and garnish with more fresh pomegranate arils.

Pomegranate Glaze
50 ml fresh pomegranate juice
1/2 tsp lemon juice
200g icing sugar

1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until smooth and light.
2. Adjust the quantity of icing sugar to make the glaze thinner or thicker, if desired

The cake is really moist - thanks to the creme fraiche, and very light, with tiny pink pomegranate arils peeking through. I love how pretty it looks! And I love the flavors too. The pomegranate flavor in the cake and the glaze are really subtle, and very fragrant.

I really loved how pretty  the shade of the glaze turned out. A lovely shade of pink without a drop of artificial food coloring! And with completely natural 'sprinkles', I felt really good about it! It doesn't get better than this!

Walnut Muffins w/ Coffee Glaze

This little beauty made my husband a very happy man!

When I saw started out making these, I wasn't really sure if it was a cupcake recipe or a muffin recipe. I adapted so many recipes to come up with this, that I had no idea what I was making. I was aiming for a 'muffin', but I didn't follow the usual 'wet bowl', 'dry bowl' method for muffins. I saw a recipe for muffins which called for the egg whites to be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in. It sounded good. This was a little more labor intensive, but well worth it.

The final result though was definitely muffin-like. It is dense (but not heavy), and has a nice crumb to it. And it has the unmistakable flavor of walnuts, which happen to be my husband's favorite! To intensify the nutty flavor, I decided to brown the butter. A good decision! And I made my husband even happier by pairing these muffins with a coffee glaze, and it worked just perfectly together!

My mother, who sampled one of these, said these were the best things to come out of my oven - ever! I don't know if that says a lot about the rest of my cooking, but it does say a lot about these muffins. I guess she's a coffee-walnut fanatic, too. And though I am not, I must still admit that these are G-O-O-D!

Keeping with my latest trend, this is a small batch recipe, and makes 6 muffins.

Walnut Muffins
Loosely adapted from Muffins Galore

Ingredients
100g walnut halves
75g butter
75g sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla
75g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method
1. In a heavy-based saucepan, melt the butter, stirring it often. The butter will froth a lot. After a little while, the frothing will stop, and the butter will start turning darker. Soon you will notice there are tiny brown specks in the butter. Once the butter reaches this point, take it off the heat. You should be able to smell the nutty aroma of the brown butter. It should not smell burnt.
2. Stir in the sugar while the butter is still hot. Set aside to cool.
3. In the meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir the flour and baking powder together. Retain 6 walnut halves for garnish, and chop the remaining walnuts very fine. Most of the walnuts were almost powdered, but I left a few chunky bits because I knew that's what would be popular here. Stir the walnuts into the flour and set aside.
4. Add the egg yolks and vanilla into the still warm butter-sugar mixture.
5. Stir in the walnut, flour and baking powder mixture.
6. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the walnut batter.
7. The final batter will be quite thick, but soft and smooth.
8. Divide the batter into a muffin tray (6 muffins), and bake at 180 for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to the touch.
9. Allow them to cool in the tray for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
10. Spread over the coffee glaze, and garnish with a walnut half.


Coffee Glaze
Ingredients
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp instant coffee
1 tsp butter, softened
150g powdered sugar
Method
1. Heat the milk and coffee together until the coffee has completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
2. Add the butter, and stir until the butter has melted.
3. Add the sugar and stir until you have a smooth glaze. If you want a thicker glaze, like the one I've used, you can add more sugar until you get the consistency you want.

Theses muffins are only mildly sweet, and need the sweetness of the glaze. The coffee and walnut flavors go really well together! 

While the texture and consistency is perfect for a breakfast muffin, I know my family would gladly eat these for dessert!