Yesterday I did a cooking demo for a Tea Party at @newcanaan_ymca (for its Forever Well program). I prepared the essentials of Afternoon Tea: mini sandwiches and scones (some plain, some with blueberries). What fun we all had! And we feasted of course! Here’s the recipe for the scones: BLUEBERRY SCONES
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
6 tablespoons butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup blueberries
Turbinado sugar, optional
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest in a bowl. Add the butter in chunks and work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix the egg and buttermilk together and add them to the dry ingredients. Mix until a soft dough forms. Add the blueberries and gently mix the dough to incorporate them, taking care not to crush the fruit. Break the dough in half and place on a floured surface. Press each half into a circle about 3/4” thick. Cut each circle into six wedges and place on the prepared cookie sheet. Sprinkle with some turbinado sugar if desired. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the scones are browned and well risen. Makes 12 #afternoontea #afternoonteatime #scones #sconesrecipe #blurberryscones #teatime
Perfect Buttermilk Biscuits
Every once in a while I post a recipe that includes buttermilk and invariably someone tells me that they don’t want to buy it just for this one recipe. But really, I promise! — once you have buttermilk in the house, you’re going to use it again. Because it is SO SO wonderful for so many things like cold soups and cole slaw and most especially for baked goods.
Like these biscuits, baked especially because today is National Buttermilk Biscuit Day. In case you hadn’t heard.
BUTTERMILK BISCUITS
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour (or 7 tablespoons all-purpose flour plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons grated fresh lemon zest, optional
8 tablespoons cold butter
2/3 cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Sift the flour, cake flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into a bowl. Stir in the lemon zest, if used. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the bowl. Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (or use the pulse in a food processor). Pour in the buttermilk and mix until you can form a soft ball of dough. Try not to pound or overwork the dough (this makes the biscuits tough). Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead a couple of times. Roll or press the dough gently to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out circles with a cookie cutter or the bottom of a drinking glass. Place the circles one inch apart (for darker biscuits) or close together (for fluffier biscuits) on the baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes or until they have risen and are lightly browned. Makes about 10 #biscuits #buttermilkbiscuits #buttermilkbiscuitsfromscratch #buttermilk #nationalbuttermilkbiscuitday
Sauteed Strawberry Strawberry Shortcake
My birthday is in a few days and usually we get together with the kids and grandkids to celebrate at my house. There’s always an apple pie for dessert at some point because I prefer homemade apple pie to birthday cake. And I always have apple pies in the freezer.
But this is an unusual year for our family: graduation and bat mitzvah celebrations, along with several birthdays, Father’s Day and so on — and so — no birthday get-together at my place.
(Actually, at some point during the week I will invite my sister-in-law Eileen and brother Jeff — and I’ll take out some pie for us to enjoy.)
In the meantime, for the two of us, I will celebrate with individual strawberry shortcakes. I made the biscuits already (they’re frozen). Whipped cream takes about 2 minutes in the mixer. I am hoping to find great strawberries — they are in season, so it should be easy.
Last week I actually couldn’t find wonderful berries, even at the Farmer’s market.
So I bought what they had and gave them a quick saute.
Which is what I will do again if the berries aren’t perfect.
This was quite delicious. Here’s the recipe, for strawberry shortcake when you can’t get the best berries.
Sauteed Strawberry Shortcake
2 tablespoons butter
4 cups cut up fresh strawberries
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons orange flavored brandy or rum
Shortcake biscuits
Sweetened whipped cream
Fresh mint for garnish
Heat the butter in a saute pan over medium heat. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, add the berries, stir to coat them with butter and cook for one minute. Sprinkle with the sugar, toss and pour in the brandy. Stir, cook briefly and set aside. Cut the biscuits in half. Place the bottoms of each on dessert plates. Layer with some of the berries and some of the whipped cream (reserve some whipped cream for the top). Cover with the biscuit tops. Garnish with a blob of whipped cream and some mint leaves.
Makes 8 servings
Biscuits
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel, optional
8 tablespoons cold butter
2/3 cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Mix the flour, cake flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into a bowl. Stir in the lemon peel, if used. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the bowl. Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (or use a food processor on pulse). Pour in the buttermilk and mix until you can form a soft ball of dough. The dough will be slightly sticky. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead a couple of times. Roll the dough gently to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out circles with a doughnut cutter or the bottom of a glass. Place the circles on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 20-23 minutes or until they have risen and are lightly browned.
Makes 8
Buttermilk Biscuits
Years ago I tested appliances for Consumer’s Digest Magazine and once had the good fortune to try out about eight different bread-making machines (that was back in the day when these machines were the rage).
If you have a bread-making machine, do you remember which closet you stuck it in? (The one I eventually bought is in my basement.)
One of the most interesting models was a Toastmaster. Not only could it be used to make a loaf of bread, I could also make butter in it.
Which I did.
I remember buying heavy sweet cream and pouring it into the machine, pressing a few buttons and in a few minutes, voila! there was the freshest, sweetest, creamiest butter I EVER tasted. I smeared it on the bread I had baked in the machine. That was a delicious day.
Of course, at the bottom of the container was a big bonus: real, fresh buttermilk, the liquid left over when you churn cream into butter. After I finished my work I poured it into a glass and drank it, with its teeny butter spots and all, down in a couple of gulps.
If you’ve never tasted fresh buttermilk, you’ve missed a goodie. It’s thin, tangy and extraordinarily thirst quenching. Different. Special.
I haven’t made butter (or buttermilk since then). I buy buttermilk the way most folks do, in the supermarket. It’s not really made the way I made mine. Commercial buttermilk is made by combining skim or low-fat milk with specific cultures and thickeners. It doesn’t have that “just-churned” taste, but it’s still quite delicious to drink or poured over cold cereal.
Although buttermilk has become a bit more popular in recent years because it contains probiotics, most people I know shiver at the thought of drinking it. But I say: give it a try. If not as a beverage by itself, then perhaps in a smoothie.
At the very least, use it to make muffins, pancakes, cornbread, banana bread and stuff like that. Buttermilk makes all these baked items incredibly crumbly/tender. Or make it into Ranch Dressing. Or use it for cream soups.
Sometimes people tell me that they don’t want to buy buttermilk because they’re only going to use it for one recipe and it’s not worth getting a whole quart. But really, once you have it in the house, and you try it, you’re going to use it again. I promise.
Like for these biscuits:
Buttermilk Biscuits
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons grated fresh lemon peel, optional
8 tablespoons cold butter
2/3 cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Sift the flour, cake flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into a bowl. Stir in the lemon peel, if used. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the bowl. Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour in the buttermilk and mix until you can form a soft ball of dough. Try not to pound or overwork the dough (this makes the biscuits tough). Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead a couple of times. Roll or press the dough gently to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out circles with a doughnut cutter or the bottom of a glass. Place the circles one inch apart (for darker biscuits) or close together (for fluffier biscuits) on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes or until they have risen and are lightly browned. Makes about 10