Best. Scones. Ever.

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of scones.  I find that they always tend to be dry, dense, and flavorless.  I've tried the scones from the big donut chain and didn't care for them because along with those last three offenses, they were also overly sweet.  I've tried scones from a local bakery and they were raw in the middle and tough on the outside.  I had pretty much given up on scones, believing that they just weren't meant for me.

But then I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen where they made blueberry scones, and they looked so easy to make that I thought I should give it a shot.  ATK rarely steers me wrong. 

Let's bake!  (Click here for the full Cook's Illustrated recipe.)

One of the keys to this recipe seems to be keeping the ingredients as cold as possible.  So of course, I decided to make these on a really hot and humid day. 

The first step in this recipe was one that I've never seen or heard of before.  You have to grate 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter and then put it in the freezer.  The best way to do this is to take two (frozen) sticks of butter, unwrap a little more than half of each stick and then, using the big holes on a box grater, grate half of each stick.

Once that's done and waiting in the freezer, cut two more tablespoons of the butter into a little bowl, melt it, and save it for later.

Next, measure out 1 1/2 cups of fresh, clean blueberries.  Once they are clean and dry, put those in the freezer as well.

In a small bowl (I just used a measuring cup), whisk together 1/2 cup whole milk and 1/2 cup sour cream.  Then, in a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups (or 10 ounces) all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon table salt.

I stray from ATK's recipe here a little bit, because they ask for 1 teaspoon of lemon to be mixed in with the dry ingredients.  I like lemon.  I like blueberries.  For some strange reason, I do not like lemon mixed with blueberries.  On paper the combination makes sense, but I just don't care for it.  So no lemon for my scones.  If you like lemon...go to town.

Next step in the recipe is to add the frozen grated butter to the dry ingredient mixture.  Quickly toss the butter in with your fingers.  Speed is important in this recipe in order to keep everything nice and chilly.

Next, using a rubber spatula, mix the milk mixture into the flour mixture.  Don't over mix though - just until it's combined.  It may look like a big scraggly mess - but it works out in the end.

Next, you want to turn this mixture out on to a liberally floured work surface.  I usually will do this on my counter top, but remember how I said that I made these on a hot and humid day?  Well, I decided that I'd try a little trick.  I put my biggest sheet pan into the freezer when I started making the recipe, and used that as my work surface in hopes that it would help to keep everything cool.

Now you'll knead the dough 6 to 8 times, until it holds together in a ragged ball.  If you need to, add flour to keep it from sticking.  Next, roll the dough into a 12-inch (approximate) square.  (You can really see the little butter pieces in the dough here - this is a good thing.)

Using a bench scraper, you want to tri-fold the dough.  Start with one side and fold it in towards the center.

Then fold the other side in, on top of that first fold.

Next, do the same with the top and the bottom, until you have a plump little square of dough.

Move the dough to a floured plate and put it in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Once the time is up, move the dough back onto a floured working surface and roll it into another 12-inch square.  (You can see that I am no longer working on the sheet pan, but on a flexible cutting board.  That's because we're going to be cutting the dough soon with a sharp knife and I want to keep my sheet pan and countertops in good condition.)

Next, add the blueberries evenly over the top of the dough and press them down slightly into the dough.

Next, you want to roll the dough (sort of like you would if you were making cinnamon buns).

Once it's rolled into a nice tight log shape, put it seam-side down and press it into a 12 x 4-inch rectangle.

Then, using a sharp, floured knife, cut the rectangle in half...















...then cut each of those rectangles in half...

...and then cut each of these four pieces into two triangles.

Transfer the triangles onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.














Next, using the melted butter from earlier, brush the tops of each triangle.



Next, sprinkle sugar over the tops.  (1 tablespoon combined)



Bake them in the (preheated to 425) oven until the tops and bottoms are golden brown, 18 to 25 minutes.  When they come out, transfer them to a wire rack and let them cool for 10 minutes before serving them.

These scones have changed my mind completely.  I realized that it's not that I don't like scones, but that I don't like BAD scones!  These were delicious.  They are light and flaky, with a crisp exterior and a soft, fluffy interior. 

One thing that shocked me about them is that they don't need butter on the side.  I am someone who thinks that a muffin is incomplete without a nice slathering of butter on it.  And since I've always found scones to be drier and more dense than muffins, I was certain that I would need butter to make these taste really good.  Not the case!  These were so tasty and buttery on their own!

This recipe is a definite keeper.  It's quick, easy, and delicious. 

The week after I made these, I tried making them with a mixture of blueberries and raspberries.  This combination was good, but I definitely prefer the straight blueberry ones.  I may try a strawberry version at some point in the future too, but that will have to wait...

I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow morning to have my baby boy!  So my baking/blogging will be on hold for a little bit while we settle in to life with a newborn again!  Although, if anyone wants to bake for me...feel free to make me some of these scones!

Chocolate Cream Cupcakes

It's 9:30 on a Tuesday morning.  The bowl of Cheerios with sliced bananas that I had for breakfast at 7:00am seems like a distant memory.  My stomach and my mind are having an internal battle:  "Should I?"  "No, don't do it!"  "But I'm reeeealy hungry!"  "You'll regret it later."  "Oh shush!"  Stomach wins!

I grab a dollar from my purse, make my way down to the vending machine in our office kitchen, and start to browse.  Chips?  No.  Candy bar?  Nah.  Same bag of cashews that seemingly has been in the machine for the past 3 years?  Um, no.  Oooh, what's this??  Hostess Cupcakes??  And we have a winner!

As I walk back to my office, I'm happily thinking about how much I used to love Hostess Cupcakes as a kid.  Chocolatey cupcakes with a rich creamy filling...mmmmm!  Am I in for a treat!

I sit down at my desk, quickly unwrap them, and take my first bite, waiting for the nostalgia to wash over me...but wait...hmmm...something isn't right here.  I take another bite.  These cupcakes are...well, they're OK.  Only OK.  There's nothing wrong with them, they just aren't anything spectacular.

As I polish off the first of the two cupcakes, I decide to read the ingredient list.  Egads!!!  I'm eating a chemical cupcake!  (This did not stop me from gobbling down the second cupcake, mind you.)  But it gets me thinking..."Didn't I see a recipe for a homemade version of these cupcakes recently?"  To the Internet!

The first places I check are my go-to recipe sources, Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country.  Sure enough, Cook's Country has just the recipe I was looking for.  So I make up my shopping list, hit the store on the way home from work, and let the baking begin!

Start by heating the oven to 325 degrees and grease and flour a 12-cup muffin tin.

In the first bowl you see, I have combined 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  In the large glass bowl, I have 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, and 1 tablespoon of instant espresso.  The other ingredients here are 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 2 large eggs, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.















I added 1/2 cup of boiling water to the cocoa, chocolate chips, and espresso, and whisked it until it was smooth.  Then I added the sugar, sour cream, oil, eggs, and vanilla and mixed that until it was all combined.

Next, I whisked in the flour until it was incorporated.

I divided the batter evenly amongst the muffin cups.

And baked them for 18-22 minutes (22 in my case) until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake came out with just a few dry crumbs. 















I cooled the cupcakes in the tin for 10 minutes...

then turned them out onto a wire rack and let them cool completely.

While the cupcakes cooled, I worked on the cream filling.

In a large bowl, I combined 3 tablespoons of water with 3/4 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin.  I let this sit for about 5 minutes.  Then I microwaved the mixture for about 30 seconds, until the mixture was bubbling around the edges and the gelatin had dissolved.

Next, I stirred in 4 tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.

Then I let the mixture cool for about 5 minutes, and whisked in 1 1/4 cups marshmallow creme (fluff).

It's tough to whisk in the fluff at first.  It's very sticky and clumpy.

But if you just keep whisking...

and whisking...

and whisking...eventually all the lumps will smooth out and you'll have a nice creamy mixture, like this:

Once this was all smooth, I put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, to set.

While I waited for the filling, I started on the glaze and the cupcake assembly.

I microwaved 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips with 3 tablespoons of butter, stopping to stir every 30 seconds, until the mixture was smooth.

Next, I cut a cone shape out of the top of each of the cupcakes...

and then sliced off the inner part of the cone.

This left me with a plate full of cupcake innards.  What to do, what to do?  (I'll let you figure it out.)

A handy tip is to keep the tops next to their corresponding cupcakes.  This way you won't run into tops that no longer seem to fit once you assemble them.

By this point in the process, the filling was ready to come out of the fridge.  I put 1/3 cup of the cream filling into a plastic bag fitted with a small plain tip.  (To be used for decorating later.)

With the rest of the filling, I spooned it evenly into the cupcake bases...

and put the tops back on to each of the cupcakes.

Next, using a spoon, I glazed each of the cupcakes, making sure to have the chocolate cover the cut parts of the cupcake.

Once they were all glazed, I piped little white swirls across the cupcakes.

Technically speaking, Hostess Cupcakes all have seven swirls.  That's OK...I still think mine are pretty!

Here's what they look like on the inside.  Ooooooh...Aaaaaah!

These cupcakes were so much tastier than the Hostess Cupcakes.  They have so much more chocolate flavor, and they taste like they were made with real ingredients.  (Imagine that.)  Plus, they're fun to make. Start to finish, I'd say that these took me about an hour and a half to make.

My husband and co-workers loved them, so I'm adding this recipe to my 'keepers' file!

For the full recipe, check out Cook's Country - Chocolate Cream Cupcakes.

Out with the Eggs!

Last night, to the delight of my husband, I decided to make another batch of Cook's Illustrated's Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie.  However, this time I made a few adjustments to their recipe.  Our daughter has an egg allergy, so I wanted to make a version that she could eat.

I have read online about different egg substitutes that you can use when baking, and it looked like the best option for cookies was to substitute applesauce for the egg.  I added 3/8 cup of applesauce (I've learned that you should substitute 1/4 cup per egg.) in place of the one egg plus one egg yolk that the original recipe calls for.

I made two other adjustments to the recipe as well.  The original recipe yeilds 16 fairly large cookies - a bit too large for my young daughter to manage.  Instead of scooping out 3 Tablespoons of batter per cookie, I made these cookies with just 1.5 Tablespoon of batter per cookie. 

Since the result was going to be a smaller cookie, I also opted for mini chocolate chips instead of the larger chips that I used when making the original batch.

The cookies came out really well with these changes.  There are two things that I think I will change the next time I make this 'egg-free' version of the recipe.  The applesauce added extra sweetness to the cookies, so I think that I could reduce the amount of sugar that is added to the dough.  I'm also going to try reducing the number of chocolate chips in the dough by a bit.

In the end, I would say that this variation on the original recipe was a hit.  My daughter liked the cookie a lot, my husband thought they tasted great, and had I not known that there were no eggs in the batter, I don't think I ever would have suspected it.  The cookies still had the great crisp edges, chewy centers, and butterscotch undertones.

I brought the cookies into work today, and they received rave reviews.  No one seems to have noticed that they are egg-free.

For the very last tray that went into the oven, I mixed chopped walnuts into the dough.

I had a hard time deciding which I liked better; with or without the walnuts.  Fortunately for me, I don't have to decide...I can have one of each!  (Oh, the joys of being an adult.)

Thanks to Cook's Illustrated for giving me a good starting-off point for a recipe that will be the new Chocolate Chip Cookie standard in our house!

C is for...

Cristina?  Well, yes, I like to think that is what C is for.  But we all know what C is really for...COOKIES!  Not just any cookies, but Cook's Illustrated's Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies.


Before we start baking, let me explain a little bit about this blog.  I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog for quite some time now.  I knew that I'd like to write about baking and cooking, because it is a great passion of mine and I love taking pictures of the things that come out of my kitchen.  I also have been a very big fan of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated, and Cook's Country.  So when ATK posted a Blogger Challenge, I was finally inspired to start writing this blog.


The challenge proposed is to blog about making one of my favorite desserts/snacks:  Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Their Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe promises cookies with a moist and chewy interior, crisp edges, and deep notes of toffee and butterscotch...OK, I'm sold!


OK, let's bake!
 Start by heating the oven to 375 degrees and adjusting your oven rack to the middle position.

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.  I recently got these pre-cut half-sheet parchment papers from King Arthur Flour and they are very handy.  I highly recommend them if you, like me, hate having to cut down larger sheets of parchment to fit your pan perfectly.

Whisk 1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) of flour with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and set aside.  I prefer to weigh my ingredients when possible because it will produce the most accurate results.

I have to tell you that this is my favorite part of the recipe, and I'll tell you why after this photo.

In a 10-inch skillet, heat 10 Tablespoons of unsalted butter over medium-high heat, until it has melted.  This will take about 2 minutes.

That's right - we're melting the butter!!!  There have been so many times that I have wanted to bake something that requires "softened butter" only to realize that I forgot to leave the butter out.  No worries with this recipe - we're just tossing the butter in the skillet! 

Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan constantly, until the butter is a dark golden brown.  I pulled the pan off after 3 minutes.

Pour the browned butter into a large bowl and stir in an additional 4 Tablespoons of unsalted butter, until it is completely melted.

Add 1/2 cup (3/1/2 ounces) of sugar, 3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) of packed brown sugar*, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the butter and whisk it until it is fully incorporated.

*Make sure you use fresh, moist brown sugar.  I learned from Cook's Illustrated that the hardened brown sugar will make your cookies dry...and nobody wants that, right?

Add one egg, plus one egg yolk and whisk for about 30 seconds, until the mixture is smooth.

Let the mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk again for another 30 seconds. 

Repeat this process two more times, until the mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny.  You can really see the difference in color and texture from the image above to the one below.

Add the flour and baking soda to the mixture.

Stir the flour mixture in until it is just combined.

Stir in 1 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips.  You can also add 3/4 cup toasted, chopped pecans or walnuts at this point, if you so desire.  (Sometimes I feel like a nut...today, I don't.) 

Make sure no flour pockets remain in the dough.

I'm using Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chips, which were one of the recommended brands in Cook's Illustrated's 2009 Dark Chocolate Chip taste test.

Divide the dough into 16 equal portions.  Each cookie will be about 3 Tablespoons worth of dough.  I have a 1 1/2 Tablespoon scoop, so I'm using two scoops per cookie.

Arrange 8 dough balls per cookie sheet, being sure to keep them 2 inches apart.

Look how pretty they are...and it's only going to get better from here!

Bake one tray of cookies at a time, until the cookies are golden brown, puffy, and the edges have begun to set, but the centers are soft.   This will take about 10-14 minutes.  (Mine were in for 13 minutes.)  You should also rotate the tray, halfway through baking.

The recipe recommends that you transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and cool the cookies completely before serving. 

Um...sorry Cook's Illustrated, as much as I respect your advice and take your recommendations, I'm still going to have one cookie (OK, I admit it, two cookies) while they are piping hot!

I don't know what kind of super powers you have that you're able to resist a hot chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven, but I certainly do not possess these same powers.  I mean, really, who can resist ooey gooey warm chocolate chip cookies?

This recipe was very easy to make.  I'd estimate that it took me about an hour from start to finish.  I actually made them on my lunch break from work one day, and later came home to a very happy husband with a belly full of chocolate chip cookies. 

I want to try a couple of different versions of the cookie; one with walnuts or pecans included and one substituting applesauce for the egg (for my daughter who has an egg allergy).  I'll post the results of both of those variations here for you once I've tried them.

Thank you to Cook's Illustrated for yet another successful recipe (and for starting me on my blogging journey)!