Happy New Year!  For Christmas, I received some new baking tools from Mimi.  Apparently, she was not impressed with my burnt cookie sheets and gave me new ones complete with silicone mats so my cookies don’t stick to  the bottom either.  She, also, told me that measuring is very important in cooking and baking in order for things to not come out the way I keep making them come out.  Therefore, she gave me a measuring digital scale for me to weigh flour and what not.  Finally, since my New Year’s resolution is to be a better cook among other things, I was presented with a cookbook all about baking, which is called (great name, by the way), Baking.  The book claims that I can pull off “60 sensational treats…in a snap.” Challenge accepted.  I probably won’t do this every week, because that New Year’s resolution thing, also, wants me to lose weight, but I will be intermittently trying recipes from this book.  The challenge is, though, whether or not I can follow directions.  So, here we go…

I started with the first recipe of scones.  This came from a lady called, wait for it, “The Scone Lady.” Where do they come up with these names. It would be funnier if she didn’t make scones at all.  I mean, she could just make cookies and brownies, and just be called “The Scone Lady.” Then, one day, someone is writing a book and says,  “I need a recipe for scones, who do I call…I know, the scone lady.”  “The Scone Lady,” not wanting to disappoint anybody, just starts making up ingredients, and everybody believes her, because she’s called “the scone lady.” Okay, where was I?  I started with weighing my flour on my new deluxe weighing machine.  I felt just like Pablo Escobar making sure I was getting my money’s worth of flour measured correctly.  Then, I was told to use a food processor to pulse, but, guess what, I don’t have one of those, so I improvised.  I had my “one-balled” beater (if you remember, it broke in my last post).  I just passed it 10 times around the bowl, same thing.  Then, I added cold butter, which made me worry a little for my poor beater, but I basically only had to smoosh the butter around.  Finally, since I wanted savory rather than sweet, I added Rosemary for flavor.

I would like to point out that while I was preparing the batter, I was, also, making supper.  This shows that this is an easy recipe to follow if I was able to concentrate on more that one thing.

Since I didn’t want to overwork my beater, I moved on to working the dough with my hands.  You can still see chunks of butter, but the book assured me that it was ok.  I, then, was asked to create a 6-7 inch circle.  I’m no artist, so my sculpture was a little something to be desired.

I, then, sliced it into eight pieces.  I’ve had a lot of practice cutting up pizzas, so I’m kind of an expert now. Then, came the choices.  I could either freeze them (which was recommended) or bake them right away.  I chose to freeze them.  I wasn’t taking any chances.

After I left them in the freezer overnight, I used heavy cream to glaze the top and salted each one.  I debated whether to sprinkle cheese on top, but my hunger won out, and I didn’t feel like grating cheese.

Now, here comes the kicker, they wanted me to preheat the oven at 400°.  I raised my brow and thought, “Really, you want ME to use 400°…you’ve got to be joking.”  They weren’t.  So, I did.  After waiting what seemed like an eternity of preheating, I put the scones in the oven.  My house was filled with the aroma of Rosemary.  The scones came out beautiful and fluffy.  They actually weren’t heavy and seemed more like triangle biscuits.  I should call her “The Biscuit Lady”and see what happens.

After they cooled down a bit, I dug into the scone.  It was delicious….oh wait…there’s an aftertaste.  Yep, I used too much Rosemary.  It did not go well with my coffee.  Oh, wow, that aftertaste was not pleasant.  I needed a second opinion, so I called my daughter over.

Me: “Hey, try this scone.

Her: “Papa taught you how to make scones?!”

Me: “No, I taught myself.”

She takes a bite.

Her: “Mmmm…(her face drops)…they’re good, but I don’t want anymore.”

Me: “It’s okay if you don’t like it.”

She stares at me.

Me: “It’s not good, is it?”

Her: (Shakes head) “I just wanted to say it was good.”

I made chicken soup that night and decided to drown my scones in the broth.  They were much better.  The broth calmed the rosemary down and made it edible.  I think I ended up winning this challenge with my soup soakers, but lost if we’re still calling them scones.