.blueberry scones.

I admit I was never a big scone lover. It wasn't until I came across a recipe years ago that I truly become a convert. These are slightly sweet, light biscuits. I like putting a light lemon glaze on top to give them added flavor. You can't go wrong with these.

You can add whatever kind of fruit and spices you want. One of my favorite things to add is a triple berry mix you can find at Costco. It has blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Mmmm hmm. Perfection!

You can make these scones up ahead of time if you're wanting these first thing in the morning. Make them up, pat them out and cut into circles or wedges. Place on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer. Allow them to freeze all the way and then store in baggies. When it's time to bake, put down a Silpat or parchment paper to keep from sticking to the pan. Brush with eggwash and throw in the oven.


In a large bowl put 4 cups flour (self rising works great for scones). Add 1 Tbsp baking powder.


Add 1/2 tsp salt.

And add 1/3 cup sugar.


Cut in 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 c) cold butter.


In a measuring cup, mix 1 1/4 cup milk and 2 eggs. Use a fork to whisk them together.


Dump all of the wet into the bowl of dry ingredients.


Use a fork to mix everything together. If you need to add a little more water then do so. Just make sure you don't get the dough too wet.


Add whatever berries or fruit or whatever you want to add. Mix in.


Flour the counter and press the dough flat. Not too thin. About 1 1/2" to 2" thick.


Cut into wedges, or use a biscuit cutter.


Place the scones on a cookie sheet sprayed with Pam.


In a bowl, whisk together 1 egg and a little water. This is your eggwash.


Brush the tops of the scones lightly then put in a 425* oven and bake until golden brown.


Pull from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes. You need them to cool a little before glazing.


Put some powdered sugar in a bowl. Add a tiny bit of water and work with a fork to get rid of any lumps. You want this semi thick. You don't want it runny or else it will not hold it's shape well when you drizzle on top of the scones.


Drizzle scones lightly.

Nevermind my blog of glaze. Hard to take pics while doing this. ;)

Serve immediately!


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_115hj7mhrcr

.blueberry crisp.

I love blueberries. There's a blueberry farm in the next town over and I've been dying to get over there. Sadly, it seems whenever I could go, the weather was just lousy and there's no way I could take the baby in the rain... so I wound up buying these from the store. They had these huge containers for sale and I couldn't resist picking up one to make this.



Crisps are always so quick and easy to make because they don't require a pie crust. So for all you "pie crust phobics", this is right up your alley!



Put about 4 cups blueberries in a bowl. You can use frozen if you don't have fresh.



Add to the bowl:
1/2 c. sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Mix well and set aside.



In another bowl, put 2/3 c. flour, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 2/3 c. chopped toasted pecans (optional), and 1/2 c. oatmeal.



Break in 4 Tbsp butter and use a pastry blender or your hands to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.



You want it to be nice and crumbly.



Take the other half of the cube of butter and rub it all over the bottom and sides of your baking dish.



Remove the stick and put in a ziploc to use on something else later.
(I know what you're thinking.. "she's going to use that WHOLE piece to grease the dish????")



Zest one lemon.



Dump the blueberries in the baking dish and then sprinkle the zest all over the top. This will give the blueberries a wonderful tart flavor.



Sprinkle on the crumb topping.



Make sure the whole top is covered with the topping.



Put in a 350* for about an hour.



The top will be nice and golden and the blueberries will be bubbly on the edges when it's all done.

Serve warm with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_81d8gtrgdw

.dad's buttermilk pancakes.

My dad is the pancake man! Growing up we always looked forward to the weekends because that meant dad would make us breakfast. This is his go to recipe and the pancakes are so light and fluffy and delicious!



My daughter begged me to make these last weekend and who was I to disappoint her? However, halfway through I realized my griddle broke about a month or so ago so I had to use a pan on the stove. I really recommend using a griddle. You'll be pouring and flipping for a long time. LOL



Feel free to add whatever berries you want to this, if you want berries at all. I had some blueberries in the freezer and used those. Raspberries are really good in this recipe, as are bacon bits, or apples! Yummy!



In a large bowl, put 2 cups flour, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt.



In a small mixing bowl, mix together 2 cups buttermilk and 2 eggs.



Pour the wet into the dry and mix until all the lumps are gone.



If it's too thick, add a litle more buttermilk. You don't want it too thin otherwise your pancakes will be paper thin.



At this point, add berries if you're using them.



Use a measuring cup or ladle to scoop the batter. Put a large scoop on the griddle or pan.



When you see air bubbles breaking all over the pancake, you will know it's time to flip!



Carefully flip the pancake over. Let it cook on the other side. This should take about 3 minutes per side. If your griddle or pan is too hot, you are going to have gooey centers that are YUCKY! So make sure you're not cooking these on too high of heat.



Pull from the griddle when both sides are nice and golden. Hold in a 200* oven until all pancakes are made.



Growing up, we never bought storebought syrup. We always made it. I really can't have it any other way now. It's really easy to make homemade syrup.



Put 2 cups sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan.

Turn the burner onto medium low. You want to dissolve the sugar.



When the syrup loses it's cloudiness and the sugar crystals have dissolved, you want to add some mapeline, or maple flavoring. About 2 teaspoons.







Mapleine can be found down the spice aisle of your grocery store. A big bottle like this goes a long way.

When the syrup and pancakes are ready, it's time to dig in!

Serve hot with lots of butter. Now you can have delicious, fluffy buttermilk pancakes at home! Treat your kids tomorrow morning. :)

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_78gxm8k7zj

.berry cream puff.

I had a luncheon today with some girlfriends. We all had our babies within a month of each other. We all had GIRLS! So we get together every month to hang out and eat and let our babies play together. It's a lot of fun. Today we had lunch at my house. I fixed some grilled chicken, grilled vegetable pasta salad (recipe below), greek salad (recipe to come), and for dessert...... berry cream puffs.



My husband insisted we didn't need a dessert for lunch. Puh-lease. I told him what I was thinking of making and he quickly jumped on board. LOL I guess you can have dessert with lunch!



I didn't want to do your typical strawberry shortcake, but I did want a fresh, fruity type dessert that screams SPRING! When I was at the store picking up supplies, I saw blueberries and blackberries with the strawberries. Mmmmm.... oh yah.



We made cream puffs daily at the bakery and filled them with pastry cream folded in with whipped cream, and topped the puff off with some ganache. Very popular. Making cream puffs isn't difficult, and they don't take very long to make. You will get a great upper body workout though from working in the flour and the eggs. Let me show you how to make them.



In a pot, put 1 cup water, 1/4 cup butter (cut up), and 1/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil.

While you're waiting for the water to boil, break open 4 eggs and put in a bowl or measuring cup. You want to have all of your stuff ready to go because it's going to go fast and you won't have time to do all of this.

Butter a cookie sheet (I took that pat of butter off after I took this picture).

You want to butter this because those cream puffs will stick horribly bad if you don't.

When the water comes to a boil and the butter is melted, dump in 1 cup flour. Stir immediately using a wooden spoon. Stir until the flour is cooked and it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and form a ball. Remove from the heat.

Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well between each addition. This is what it will look like when all the eggs have been added. The reason why you want to add one at a time is if you dumped all of them in, it would cool your dough down too fast and you will get the wrong consistency and your cream puffs won't "puff" up the right way.

Spoon the dough into a pastry bag and pipe in a circular fashion little "hives". I made these puffs big today. Normally you can get about 8-10 regular sized puffs out of this recipe. You can easily double the recipe to make more.

Bake in a 375* oven for 35 minutes or so. You want them to be nice and golden brown. If you pull them out too soon, they will collapse as they cool. Big concern is you want to make sure the centers get cooked. Pull too soon and it'll be doughy inside. Our motto at the bakery with these were overbaking was better than underbaking.

Allow to cool.



In a bowl, mix together your berries. Like I said earlier, I used blackberries, blueberries, and sliced strawberries. Add a little sugar and some lemon juice. Let the berries macerate for awhile.

To assemble, cut the top off your cream puff. Take some whipped cream (which you can whip up while the puffs are cooling) and put a large dollop on the bottom half. Spoon some berries on top of that, then add another little dollop on top of the berries. Put the top back on.

Using a sieve, put a little powdered sugar in it and then tap lightly on top of the cream puff to dust them.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

[Chef's notes: Cream puffs are great for parties. Make the puffs a lot smaller and fill with chicken salad, or with pastry cream or just whipped cream. You can make them up ahead of time and freeze.]

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_43c9tqv6cp