scones

brown butter and hazelnut scones

by Eva on November 8, 2012

Yesterday I was pretty proud about my workout. Today I walk as elegant as a cowboy after a long day on his horse’ back. My muscles are soar and it takes me double the time to get up from a chair. Let me tell you about my gym, now that I am about to move soon, I kind of look at thinks with a different eye. First on the way there I have to pass a school, so I make sure not to hit the road at arrival or departure time of hundred of small kids with their crazy mums. If there wouldn’t be two policemen and a school crossing guard dealing with the traffic, I don’t know how anyone could survive this chaos. In case I left the school behind me and I am still willing to drive further to the gym, a higher force is testing me again. I can see my favorite pie shop on the right and the temptation is strong to pull over and get a slice of fruity or creamy pie. But (mostly) I am strong and reach the gym finally. Holding my key tag under the scanner an enthusiastic computer voice wishes me: “have a great workout”. It’s so stupid, kind and mean on the same time. I am so sorry for the nice guys working there and hearing this all day long. The next thing I notice, is the burned coffee smell. Especially in the morning this place is a meeting point for senior citizens and this gang likes to hang out, chat and have a cuppa. It is a cozy atmosphere but the coffee smell hits me like a punch in the face (nose). The black water is simmering for a very long time until bitter and lacking any flavor. Though I am not sure if there had been any in the first place.

I head downstairs while passing the squash courts and a mixed smell of testosterone, sport shoes and good old men sweet creeps up my nose. I instinctively start mouth breathing and walk faster, it is the only survival strategy that works. Finally I arrive at the treadmill. Sometimes I run like a young god, but sometimes you know…

I am not very sporty, I’ve never been. If it wouldn’t be for health reasons I don’t believe I would workout just for fun, that’s for sure. Biking and all that fun sport is a different chapter, that me like. After a good workout in the morning, I surely deserve a nice brown butter and hazelnut scone with a hot cup of coffee, freshly brewed of cause.

I know we had a lot brown butter lately and even the brown butter and hazelnut combination as a granola, but why change a winning team? I could bath in brown butter and hazelnuts are my favorite.

brown butter and hazelnut scones

ingredients

100 g / ¾ cup spelt flour
150 g / 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
50 g / ½ cup old fashioned oats
2 tsp. baking powder
65 g / 1/3 cup granulated sugar
¼ tsp. fine sea salt
130 g / 1 cup hazelnuts
100 g / 7 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 egg
120 ml / ½ cup milk (2%)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
egg wash: 1 egg and 1 Tbsp. cold water whisk until combined
1.5 Tbsp. turbinado sugar

instructions

Preheat your oven to 200 C / 400 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a saucepan over medium high heat, add butter and cook, stirring frequently (it will foam) until you see small brown specks, remove from heat, strain and let cool.
Process oatmeal in your food processor until it looks like coarse meal.
Place hazelnuts on baking sheet and roast in your oven for 5 to 7 minutes, keep an eye on them, they turn black in a blink. Let cool. Grind in your food processor until fine.
Pour milk into a small bowl, add egg and vanilla extract, whisk until incorporated.
Blend flours, oatmeal, baking powder, sugar, salt, and hazelnuts in your food processor. Add brown butter and pulse to combine, add milk mix and pulse again. Be careful not to over process.
Using a ¼ cup cookie or ice cream scoop place balls on baking sheet, flatten until ½ – ¾ inch thick. Lightly brush with egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado (raw) sugar.
Bake 20 minutes, let cool 5 minutes before serving.

{ 3 comments }

cardamon ginger scones

by Eva on February 3, 2012

Some summers ago I had been on one of my first vacations with Mr F in the USA. Our base for exploring Manhattan and surroundings had been just food steps away from the famous Small World Coffee in Princeton, NJ. I still remember the first morning, we just arrived from Germany and I already figured out where I would get my cup of Joe or as I also would call it: the satisfaction for my caffeine addiction. By the way is there help? Not that I need it, I am more than happy with my manic coffee habits. But wouldn’t it be great if there would be a group like the AA like ACDC (Anonymous Coffee Dependents Club). We would meet for donuts and hot chocolate or tea and I would bring secretly my fix in one of those thermos travel mugs and I think I wouldn’t be the only one. Not nice… That would be like bringing lottery scratch tickets to a GAM (Gamblers Anonymous Meeting). I got the solution, it should be a CLC (Coffee Lovers Club) and no one would get hurt.
Back to the cardamon ginger scones and how we first met. So there is me awake in the very (very, very) early morning and jet lag don’t let me fall asleep again. As the Small World Coffee finally opened, I was so ready for a cup of hot coffee and Mr F went down the stair, crossed the Witherspoon street, bought coffee and scones and was back in a minute. He still knows how to calm me down and what I need in the morning and things like: don’t use complicated sentences and skip important topics I still should remember later. One of the basics in happy relationship don’t you think?
And you might have already assumed, Mr F came back with some of the great cardamon ginger scones. In the next weeks of our vacation, we returned regularly for coffee and scones to this place. We used to stop by on our way to the Jersey shore for a day at the beach or the railroad station to catch the train to New York. One of the barista used to welcome us with a friendly “guten Morgen”, no matter what time it was. I liked this coffee place a lot, it has a kind of charm with a brain. I think it’s because it is located just one block away from the Princeton University and you can find students, professors and business people sitting around, reading the NY times and enjoying coffee. The amount of active brain cells is higher than in any other average coffee shop.

cardamon ginger scones
yields 12 scones
Here you can find the original recipe for Small World Coffee’s cardamon ginger scones.

400 g / 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2 teaspoon salt
65 g / 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon seeds
110 g / 1/2 cup unsalted cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
240 ml / 1 cup cold milk
1 large egg
55 g / 1/3 cup crystallized ginger, cut into small chunks

for the egg wash:
1 egg
4 tablespoons sugar

Preheat your oven to 200 C / 400 F, grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl or in your food processor mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cardamon.
Add butter, milk, one egg and ginger and mix until just combined or pulse if you use the food processor. Don’t over mix, if you still see little pieces of butter, it’s fine.
Form about 1/3 cup balls or use a ice cream scoop or spread the dough over the baking sheet, sprinkle with some flour, form a rectangle and cut into 12 triangles.
In a small bowl whisk one egg and the sugar for the egg wash and glaze generously over every scone.
Bake 17-20 minutes. Do not over bake, they might dry out.

{ 1 comment }

whole wheat – spelt – scones

by Eva on July 18, 2010

One of the best things in the morning is having crumbling, warm scones. Scones are so wonderful. They are so easy to make: Just mix the batter and bake them. Ok that sounds too simple but honestly, they are hard to beat if you consider taste, versatility and the time factor.

And that was my goal: to find a healthy, quick but tasty breakfast.

In the morning I am usually not able to follow complex recipes before getting my eyes complete open and luckily this happens after I had my first coffee. But I am usually capable to through some ingredients together, put them into the oven and get a shower, while the scones are baking. The other point is: it is much faster to make them on my own, rather than buy some at the next bakery.
This is not a batter for playing around, not mix ‘this’ with ‘that’ and gently stir ‘something’ together. Just put everything into a bowl, mix until everything is just put together but make sure the butter is really cold and you bring the scones into the oven as long as the soda is reacting with the buttermilk which starts immediately.

There was one topic which needed some adjusting because scones are not more healthful than cookies. If you use white flour and sugar and put jam on it, it is mainly the same than eating cake for breakfast. So I substituted half of the flour with whole wheat flour and the other half with spelt. The result was great and this scones were filling me for longer but didn’t sit like a stone in my stomach.
I reduced the amount of sugar because I prefer to smear jam on it, rather than have the scones be sweet.

The other point is, I don’t have the time to roll the batter and stamp out rounds in the morning. I used a spring form and cut into triangles (don’t forget to do this before baking). The remaining scones freeze well and you just put them in your toaster to defrost.

whole wheat – spelt – scones

9.5 inch or 24 cm spring form pan or bigger

1 cup / 150 g spelt
1 cup / 170 g whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon molasses
(or Ruebenkraut)
6 tablespoons / 90 g butter, very cold
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4 tablespoons roasted sunflower seeds
6 tablespoons dried cranberries
1/2 cup / 120 ml buttermilk cold

Preheat your oven to 400 F / 200 C. Place a rack in the center of your oven and grease your spring form pan.

In a mixing bowl put everything together, cut in butter.

Stir just until a soft dough forms, don’t over mix. Add more buttermilk if needed.

In the spring form flatten the batter with a wet spoon or floured hands and cut into eight triangles. Bake 15 to 18 minutes.

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brown butter and hazelnut scones