Really, I didn’t think I’d ever want another scone recipe since I have a favorite one I’ve been making forever and ever. Mine, Buttermilk Scones, are a very rich biscuit type, laden with butter, cut into cute little rounds. But when I read this recipe over at one of my favorite blogs, Farmgirl Fare, where Susan explained all about these scones, the very recipe she used when she used to own a bakery here in California . . . well, I just couldn’t resist trying them. Especially because they’re made with Meyer lemon juice and zest. A lot of it, actually. Anything that utilizes a lot of lemon juice is good in my book right now since we have lemons coming out the yin-yang.

This scone version is more cake-like. And they’re tall and BIG. Susan does explain that you can make two rounds of dough and make smaller, thinner ones, but I was intrigued to make one big, fat one and cut them into wedges. Susan’s are less sweet than most scones, i.e. there’s not a lot of sugar in the dough. You do add turbinado sugar on top, and you might want to be generous with it. If you like eating a scone that’s less sweet, you’ll love this one. I loved the texture, actually. And loved the lemony taste, big time. She uses an egg wash on top – which would help the sugar stick to the scone. I didn’t do that part, but you sure can. If you’re serving these with a sweet jam or jelly, then the less sweet scone is just perfect. And what can I say, but these were delicious with my homemade lemon curd I made just last week.

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A year ago: Blueberry Sour Cream Tart
Two years ago: Pork Tenderloin with Onion, Orange Pan Sauce
Three years ago: Cilantro Chicken

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With oodles of Meyer lemons around my house these days (from our trees), I needed to use up some juice and zest. I’d read a recipe for a lemon and chocolate loaf cake – oh, did that sound good to me. I’d recently purchased a new pan – an elongated loaf pan – narrower and longer than a traditional bread pan. It’s a ceramic dish, pan shaped, but not metal, and it’s 12” x 4” x 2 1/2”. A lovely, bright glazed finish. And it holds the equivalent of a regular loaf pan quantity. So this gave me a perfect opportunity to try it out.

The recipe came from Marie, over at A Year From Oak Cottage. She writes two blogs – that one, and another one that’s just recipes (where this one came from), called The English Kitchen. Marie said that you might not think lemon and chocolate go all that well together. Oh, but she’s right, they do!

So I dug out the new pan – see the photo at right. It’s from King Arthur Flour. I love the shape of this pan – they call it a tea loaf pan. Makes for really pretty slices.

The cake was a cinch to make – the usual kind of cake-baking ingredients (butter, flour, eggs, leavening, yogurt). Then you veer off course and add lemon zest and chocolate chunks or chips and some walnuts. And after it bakes you pour some sweetened lemon syrup on top. A drizzle, if you will.

This recipe is not a bread-type texture. It’s more a cake-type-texture. But baked in a loaf pan. The cake/bread is very, very tender. Like a sponge cake, even. So once I removed the bread from the pan (using greased parchment as a sling and moved very carefully, I’ll add) and it cooled off, I did discover that you can’t cut narrow slices as you would for a banana bread, for instance – it was just so soft – too soft for that. But gosh, it’s delicious. Very tasty. So I cut wider slices – about 3/4 of an inch each. And did I tell you it was delicious? Oh yes. If you happen to have a lemon tree and need an excuse to use up some juice and zest, try this recipe. Thanks, Marie, for a great addition to my recipe box.

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A year ago: Salmon Steaks with Soy Maple Glaze (a favorite)
Two years ago: A write-up about my (then new) Kindle
Three years ago: Coriander Lime Shrimp (a great appetizer)

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Oh yes. Oh my. Decadent. Comforting, especially if you’re a chocolate lover like I am. A chocolate high, so to speak. About 321 calories each (not as bad as you might think). Made with Dutch process cocoa, so it’s not as full of fatted chocolate as you might think, either. The whole recipe contains a cup of chocolate chips, so not all that much per muffin. All that to justify why you need to make these.

This recipe comes from the files at King Arthur Flour. I read their blog regularly, and it was a post sometime last year. I printed it out at the time and it went into my to-try file. The particular morning when I needed to make these, it just jumped out at me. You know how that is.

Easy to make, really, as long as you have all the ingredients. There’s nothing special about these unless you don’t usually have espresso powder on hand. My daughter-in-law gave me a small jar of King Arthur’s granulated espresso powder for Christmas, so I got to use my first 3/4 teaspoon of it in this recipe. And it does call for Dutch process cocoa, as I mentioned above. I had some of Hershey’s “Special Dark,” which is a combo of Dutch and regular cocoa. But you can use one or the other, really.  Dutch process cocoa is a slightly muted flavor, that’s all.

The batter is mixed up in a bowl – you don’t use a mixer – which makes it a tad easier to put together. You mix up the dry ingredients separately, then the wet ingredients separately, and combine them, also pouring in the melted butter at the same time. I used my big cookie scoop to blob batter into the 12 muffin cups and after sprinkling the top with raw sugar, into a hot oven they went. The recipe indicated 20-25 minutes, but mine were done in 20. I’d recommend you check them no later than 20 minutes. You don’t want to over bake them. They cool for 5 minutes before you remove the muffins from the pan, cool slightly, and serve warm, if at all possible! They won’t last but a few minutes if you have hungry eaters in your house. I took them to my morning Scrabble group and we all devoured one apiece. They are rich and very satisfying. A keeper. If you have leftovers, do freeze them so they’ll be as fresh as possible when you need them a few days later. These can be served as cupcakes – I noticed that a few readers of King Arthur’s website recipe said they’d reduced the sugar a bit. They are just the best when they’re still barely warm.

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A year ago: Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Croutons
Two years ago: Curry Pasta Salad (from Namibia)

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You ever get hungry for breakfast food at dinner time? Since we don’t eat eggs and bacon except on rare occasions, I decided one night that breakfast food appealed to me. I was going to make yeast waffles, but that takes an overnight sit in the refrigerator for the batter. No time for that. In my stack of to-try recipes I had this one for oatmeal pancakes, that I’d read over at Smitten Kitchen blog. She got the recipe from Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours (a cookbook that makes grains and other healthy foods much more appealing). I’d read something about the book at another blog too.

The pancakes were easy to make, although I did have to make oatmeal as part of the recipe. If you happen to have leftover oatmeal on hand you’ll save an extra 10 minutes or so, and dirtying up another pot! First, though, you have to make some oat flour in the food processor (just whiz up enough dry oatmeal until it’s flying all around in the workbowl). That gets mixed with the other dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder).

Then you mix up the wet stuff: the cooked oatmeal, milk, eggs, melted butter. That gets poured into the dry mixture and you very gently fold and whisk lightly (use a heavy hand with it and the pancakes will be heavy and tough).

Confession time: I didn’t re-read the directions as I was doing it and I added in ALL the cooked oatmeal – the recipe indicated making two cups worth and you only needed to use one. So I had to thin down the batter some. The recipe you see below is my convoluted version, which made those lovely thin double-sized dollar pancakes in the photo above. The recipe made way too many for the two of us, so I placed the extras in between pieces of waxed paper and put several  stacks into bags in the freezer. They microwave (to reheat) just fine. Be careful and don’t overdo the time, though. They were fine with just a bit of butter, but sublime with some real maple syrup. The bigger ones (top photo) were thicker, more chewy, with more of an oatmeal texture. The thinner ones I liked better, actually. But either way, they’re very tasty. Very oatmeal-y, if you will.

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A year ago: Pork Tenderloin with Maple Mustard Vinegar Sauce
Three years ago: Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

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There’s a long, meandering story to tell about this recipe. When we were in Britain in August we stayed in Wales for several days. And after a really interesting (and different) Welsh dinner at a pub one night, the chef served us a few Welsh cakes. Having never had them before (or ever heard of them) I was intrigued. He brought us four. We ate two and took the other two with us, which we enjoyed the next day. I almost always keep a small plastic bag in my purse. You just never know when you might need one. It was perfect for my little stash of Welsh Cakes. (And say, speaking of what kind of stuff women keep in their handbags – did any of you watch Nate Berkus on his new TV show, where he wanted to know what women keep in their purses – why we feel naked without one – and one audience member he interviewed actually pulled out a black bra from hers? THAT was weird!)

Traditionally, I’d guess a Welshman would not eat a Welsh Cake after dinner. And why the chef did for us, I’m not sure, except that he made us a typical Welsh meal. They’re more like a little treat to have with a cup of tea or coffee. Probably eaten mid-morning or mid-afternoon. The dessert I ordered, banofee pie – oh so good – was delicious, but it’s not Welsh particularly. So I guess he wanted us to end our meal on a Welsh high note.

We tasted them, and I fell in love with them. Being a scone aficionado, I quizzed our waitress about them. How were they made, I asked? In a dry skillet – cast iron preferred, she said. They were just lightly sweet, with a little sprinkling of sugar on the top of each one. They were warm, light and scrumptious. Right then and there I determined I’d learn how to make them once I got home. As we left the pub that evening the chef scribbled out his recipe and handed it to me. Comparing it in my mind with scones, I didn’t see any liquid on the list. I asked him about milk or cream, and he said no, the butter was sufficient. His instructions were so succinct as to be non-existent, so I figured I’d best figure it out later. I didn’t think any more about it then.

Within 24 hours of our arrival home I was searching my cookbooks (first I went to my EYB site – and yes, EYB told me I owned one cookbook with a recipe – and if you don’t know EYB, you can read my post about it). I went online and found several recipes too – many of them  identical. I made a kind of Welsh Cake spreadsheet, so to speak, of the different ingredients from all the recipes I found. Some had more butter (in proportion to flour) than others. Some had spices (like mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, or “mixed spice,” which is a combination jar sold in Britain). Some called for cream or milk. But every recipe called for an egg. Except the chef’s. Here’s the chef’s entire recipe: 5 ounces butter, 10 ounces self-raising flour, 3 ounces caster sugar, 1 pinch mixed spice, 4 ounces currants or raisins. 1/2 hour fridge, griddle no oil. Isn’t that a kick? That was it. He was doing it from memory as he scribbled onto a tiny piece of paper, and I think he must have forgotten the EGG.

SO, the next day I decided to try one of the recipes (not the chef’s) that included an egg and I’d see where it led me. I was pleased with the taste, but I followed a method that said to pat out the rounds by hand. I knew the chef’s had been much more structured, more precise than that. I didn’t know what temperature to cook them, either, although I quickly determined that using my nonstick electric skillet would be the best choice. I have an cast iron skillet, but the electric skillet would be more heat-consistent. I watched a precious video online of a dear, little Welsh grandmother named Betty making Welsh Cakes for her grandchildren. I didn’t try her recipe, but I watched the technique carefully. So next I tried the chef’s recipe – and decided with the quantity of flour  – that I should add two eggs. Mistake. Probably one would have been sufficient. But I didn’t think they were quite right, either, although I did use my rolling pin and got perfect rounds. And incidentally, my friend Marie, who writes A Year From Oak Cottage has a recipe on her other blog, about Welsh Cakes. Hers calls for lard, though. Take a look if you’re interested.

Now we fast-forward a couple or three weeks. I wasn’t sure which recipe I’d try next. Coincidentally, I’d had a couple of email exchanges with one of my readers, Toni-Anne, who lives in England (we’ve been emailing occasionally for the last couple of years). Just on chance I asked her whether she knew Welsh Cakes. Well, yes, indeed she did. She was raised in Wales, and recalled her mother making them often. Sadly, Toni-Anne’s mother died when she was 10, and she doesn’t have her mum’s recipe. Toni-Anne said she’d see what she could do, though.

A few days went by and then I got another message from Toni-Anne. She’d remembered that in the early 80’s she’d spent a few weeks in North Carolina and she’d made Welsh Cakes while she was there. North Carolina, I thought? From a magazine recipe, she said. And would you believe it? She still had the recipe. And the magazine! From the December, 1981 Redbook. The Welsh Cakes were credited to a woman named Blodwyn Lewis. Blodwyn? Yup. Blodwyn, a very Welsh name, I’ve learned.

Promptly, I made this recipe, and am so happy to say that this will be my go-to recipe for Welsh Cakes, thank you very much! I did make one change – I used cream instead of milk, but either will work. And I used my food processor to cut in the butter. They taste very similar to my buttermilk scones, but these have no buttermilk in them. I’ll have to make an ingredient by ingredient comparison of the two. Or maybe I’ll have to try my scone recipe cooked on a griddle. Maybe later. For now I’m sticking with this recipe. So here, my friends, is the Redbook magazine Welsh Cake recipe, from 1981, thanks to Toni-Anne and her amazing archives! Thank you, cyber-friend!

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A year ago: Olive Oil Orange Madeleines
Three years ago: Anise Pound Cake

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It’s amazing what photo software can do to a picture taken in almost complete darkness! I couldn’t even see the biscuits in my viewfinder, hardly. And yet, even though the photo was taken without flash, hand-held for at least 2 seconds, it came out! So I brightened it up, decreased the yellow saturation, and voila!

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A week or so ago when we had a lot of houseguests to feed for breakfast  two mornings in a row, I made the Mimi’s Cafe Buttermilk Spice Muffins, and I also made these. Old fashioned bran muffins. Both muffins got gobbled down with happy smiles on everyone’s faces. Now, I’ve tried a variety of different recipes for bran muffins over the years – some recipes that contain whole bran, whole wheat and probably other kinds of unusual flours or grains. These muffins don’t qualify for that type at all. These are the kind containing raisin bran cereal (I only use Kellogg’s brand Raisin Bran for these), some canola oil, some added golden raisins, sugar, baking soda, flour and buttermilk. The cereal gets mushed up with some boiling water first. Once that cools you add everything to a big bowl that goes into the refrigerator. Any time within a week just scoop out some more and bake. With the last batch of four I made the other day I added some nuts to the batter, and I sprinkled some finely chopped walnuts on top too.

I do think these are my favorite bran muffins and I’ve been making these since about the late 1960’s. When bran muffins kind of became a popular item – when people started paying attention to fiber. But it wasn’t called fiber then, it was just called health food. We were told that eating sugar-sweetened bran muffins would make us healthy. It was also when we were told that substituting margarine (yuk!) or vegetable oil for butter was also going to make just about everything we ate healthier.

You can cut down on the sugar if you’d like, but not by much. These are easy. And they’re just perfect breakfast comfort food. I’ve tried some other brands of raisin bran. They’re okay, but not right. I’ve tried it with All-Bran, and they’re way too heavy on the bran for me. Not because of what it does to my digestive system but because it’s too strong on the bran flavor. So I learned a long time ago to trust Kellogg’s on this one. If your box of Kellogg’s doesn’t have enough raisins in it (or they’ve sunk to the bottom of the package), that’s fine – just add some more. I almost always have some golden raisins on hand in my pantry, so I add some more of those. If you like cinnamon, add just a little bit – about 1/2 teaspoon to the dry ingredients. These muffins aren’t in the least bit gourmet. They’re quick, and downright tasty. They’d also make a great item for a holiday morning when you’ve got lots of other things cooking . . . if you have the batter already prepared, you just have to spoon it into the cups and bake. Easy.
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A year ago: Review of Placerville’s Heyday Cafe
Two years Ago: Israeli Couscous Salad with Tomato
Three years ago: Panna Cotta with Strawberries

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Oh, I do like that photograph! Just the right amount of blur, and the muffin front and offset from the center. Did you know that, in the art world, it’s a no-no to ever place your object/subject in the center? It’s always supposed to be off center. Even portraits. And usually you should have some kind of angle/triangle in your picture too (see the muffin tin edge on the right?). So I set this picture up with that in mind. With the crumbs still sitting there on the side. I didn’t pose the crumbs – they were just there when I extracted that one muffin. Dave and I promptly ate the muffin.

Back years ago, when my DH and I were still career folks, we used to leave early some workday mornings, in separate cars, and stop for breakfast at Mimi’s Cafe, a restaurant that’s right on the route we both took to work. And mostly we ordered their crock of oatmeal that came with a little bitty bowl of brown sugar and another of raisins, plus a pitcher of milk. We’d do this at least once a week, sometimes twice. And when you order some breakfasts at Mimi’s, you also get a choice of juice and/or a muffin. And they have a couple of muffins on their menu, but this buttermilk spice one was the one I always ordered. Heaven’s knows how many calories are in one of theirs (they’re much bigger than the one above). It always came with a huge, wide falling-off-the-edges top, smothered in those nutty cinnamony crumbs. Once in a great while I’d buy a few of them and take them to the office to share. They’ve always been a big favorite.

So it was with great glee a year or so ago that I read over at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody (one of my favorite blogs) that the recipe is online at Mimi’s website. I was astounded! Really? Yes. I promptly copied it over into my recipe software, thinking for sure they’d take that sucker down momentarily – that they’d been way too hasty giving away that famous recipe. Surprise – it’s still there! Meanwhile, I’ve looked at the recipe many times but never had the reason to make them.

I’d considered just running down to Mimi’s and buying them, but my recollection was that the price was considerable, even 15 years ago. So since I had the recipe, and I needed a bunch of muffins for a breakfast we had for a big group of houseguests, why not make them myself. Totally easy. It’s just an ordinary muffin batter, and ordinary ingredients in the topping. But put them together and they’re a wow in my book.

There you can see the batter in the paper cups. The topping mixture is in the center (sugar, walnuts, cinnamon and a drizzle of buttermilk to hold it together). On the right are the muffins ready to pop in the oven. The only caution I read was that you must put the muffins in the oven immediately after you add the topping – otherwise the topping sinks down into the batter. You definitely don’t want that to happen.

So even if you don’t have a Mimi’s in your neighborhood, you can try these wonderful muffins yourself! I definitely DO recommend them. Eat them right away, or freeze them. They will keep for a day, but I’d suggest you freeze them instead.
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A year ago: Madeira Onions (made from sweet Noonday onions from Noonday, Texas)
Two years ago: Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sambal (sambal is like a salsa)
Three years ago: Pesto Pea (and Spinach) Salad (an Ina Garten recipe)

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Years ago, in the 1960’s, at a pancake restaurant in Denver, I had my first Dutch Baby. I was in awe of it. They served it in individual medium-sized black cast iron pans, a serving for one or two. It came out crusty brown, with lemon juice and powdered sugar sprinkled over it. I’ve never forgotten it. And yet, all these years have gone by and I’d never made one. They’re not difficult in the least. In fact, they’re very easy. With some breakfast sausage, they were a complete breakfast for the two grandkids we have visiting.
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Last weekend our daughter Sara and her family were with us for an overnight, sandwiched in between the numerous softball league games our granddaughter Sabrina was in. But they made it to our house for dinner, overnight and breakfast the next morning. Getting up early, I came downstairs, tiptoeing past the downstairs guest room only to find Sara sitting out in our patio reading a magazine. She’d risen early because our grandson had wiggled his way into bed with Sara and John at about 5 am, kind of pushing Sara out of bed. Sara and I had a nice, quiet visit over some hot tea before the family got up.

Anyway, Sara was telling me about the favorite sticky buns she makes regularly at home, using Bridgeford frozen bread dough. I said, well, I have a 1-pound package of Trader Joe’s raw pizza dough. Did she think that might work? She thought about it and said why not? So, with both of us working at it (me mostly taking notes as I watched her), we managed to find all the necessary ingredients in my kitchen pantry. This version is so easy. What’s different about these is the addition of heavy cream in the bottom (that becomes the top if you invert the whole thing after baking). I hunted all over the internet and didn’t find a single recipe using this method.

To tell you the truth, sticky buns aren’t something I crave. I know they’re loaded with sugar and probably full of fat, and the resulting calories have a direct conduit from my mouth to my hips. Besides, with Dave a diabetic, he shouldn’t have any of these (he didn’t, I did). So thankfully, I’ve been able to resist every single one of those mall bakeries who hawk sticky buns like they’re nothing but the equivalent of a couple of cookies.

But Sara’s version was so darned easy. And they were ever-so tasty. We didn’t frost them – that seemed over the top, we thought. They had plenty of sugar in them as it was.

Sara didn’t have the recipe with her, but she thought she could remember it by heart. She makes them often enough she doesn’t even use a recipe anymore. She thinks the recipe came from a Better Homes & Gardens magazine from 1989. It’s not on the magazine’s website (probably because it’s from too long ago).

First of all, try to allow time for the dough to rise some. We didn’t have the luxury of that, so they only rose for about 15 minutes before we had to put them in the oven. And do put this in an 8×8 pan, not a 9×9 (as I did). Plus, it’s possible that the Bridgeford bread dough may be more quantity . . . we didn’t know. In either case, they didn’t really fill up the 9×9 pan quite enough. But it didn’t matter one bit to the taste!

In the bottom of the pan you mix whipping cream and brown sugar, then sprinkle the whole pecans over it. The dough is rolled or spread out into a rectangle (guessed at about 10×14), it’s brushed with most of a half a cube of melted butter, then sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon. You roll it up, try to seal the edges a bit, then cut into 12 equal pieces and they’re gently laid in on top of that creamy pecan stuff. Cover and allow to rise if you can, then bake for 25-30 minutes. I ended up turning on the broiler for just a few minutes to brown the top. And so very good. With a bunch of hungry mouths to feed, the 12 little buns were gone in a flash. Thanks, daughter!

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A year ago: Chocolate Pudding (Dorie Greenspan’s)
Two years ago: Rosemary Pork Loin

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