Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [29]
⅓ cup walnuts
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup rolled oats, whirled briefly in the food processor to break down
⅓ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
2 teaspoons maple flavoring
1½ cups heavy cream
ICING
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
7 tablespoons heavy cream
½ teaspoon maple flavoring
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the walnuts in a small pan and toast while the oven heats. Cool and chop into pieces the size of chocolate chips.
2. Combine the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a wide, shallow bowl.
3. Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients. Mix with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the dough has the appearance of cornmeal.
4. Stir in the toasted walnuts. Stir the maple flavoring into the cream and stir this into the dough.
5. Divide the dough in half and form each portion into a 7-inch circle, roughly ⅓ inch thick. Cut each circle into eight wedges, like a pie.
6. Place the wedges on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Cool for 10 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the ingredients for the icing. Beat until you have a thick, but pourable, mixture. When the scones have cooled, pour the icing over them. You should eat these as soon as possible, though leftovers can be stored for a few days in a cookie tin.
Makes 16 dainty but craggy scones
CLOTTED CREAM
Clotted cream, the traditional British accompaniment to scones, is like the love child of butter and whipped cream, and it’s almost worth traveling to England just to eat it. In theory and unreliable recipes, you make clotted cream by ripening milk at room temperature for a day, heating it to just below a simmer, and letting it hover there, quivering on the brink of a boil, for an hour. Then, in theory, you chill the milk and eventually lift off a raft of bewitching cream. I have ripened, heated, and chilled gallons of milk—testing different brands and grades—and never lifted off a raft of cream. Just slimy skin. I had given up when I got my hands on a copy of The One-Block Feast by Margo True and the staff of Sunset Magazine. This superb recipe is just one reason I recommend buying that book.
Make it or buy it?: Make it.
Hassle: None
Cost comparison: Imported Somerdale brand clotted cream costs about $8.60 for a 6-ounce jar of waxy, off-tasting spread. Ounce for ounce, homemade clotted cream is a third of the price.
5 cups heavy cream (not ultrapasteurized)
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees F. Pour the cream into a wide heatproof bowl and place in the oven. No need to cover. Let it “cook” for 12 hours.
2. Remove the bowl from the oven, cover, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning you will have a bowl that contains 2 layers of cream—one very thick, one very thin. With a slotted spoon, scoop the thick cream into another bowl or a jar. You can eat it immediately, slathered over warm scones, or cover and chill for up to 5 days.
Makes 1¼ cups
PUMPKIN–CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS
It is a truth not sufficiently acknowledged that chocolate chips and pumpkin are made for each other. Muffins, like scones, have been perverted by Starbucks. Star-bucks muffins are almost always bloated yet dry. And honestly, I think even good bakery muffins are overpriced, given how easy they are to make. Save your bakery money and calories for pastries that are hard to make—like all-butter croissants.
You can grease the muffin pans or use paper cupcake liners, which cost about four cents apiece. To me, they’re worth it.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Some stirring is all.
Cost comparison: Starbucks muffin: $1.85. Homemade muffin of equivalent size: $0.60.
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves