Duhn, duhn, duhn… The time is finally here – my last week in finance…
YYYAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
Where was I? Oh yes.
As people at work have been figuring out what I’ll be doing instead of thinking about the impacts of the European financial crisis on the world’s equity and debt markets, they naturally “joked” about when I would cook for them. I had long avoided the task due to sheer lack of free time, but seeing as how there were/are only a few days left I guess it was time to make it happen. These are what I’m referring to as my farewell finance scones. Adios corporate America, hola food dreams!
The idea for the scones came from my culinary school class’s Level 4 buffet (let’s not even get started about that ordeal…) that turned out amazingly (the scones and the buffet as a whole). I didn’t have the recipe that we used at the time, so I Googled a few different scone recipes and settled on one from Smitten Kitchen as my base, and mixed and matched a few things from the others as well. I made a few alterations in order to fit the ingredients I had at home along with what I got from the grocery store earlier that day. The original called for heavy cream, but I somehow neglected to purchase any. Instead, I used milk and added some sour cream which I saw used in another recipe, and also included more butter to make up for some of the missing fat. They turned out pretty well, but as I subscribe to the “fat is flavor” mantra, I’d be interested to see how they taste with the heavy cream. I guess these will be the “summer is coming” version of the recipe.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/8 cup sugar
- pinch of salt
- 6 tbsp chilled, unsalted butter cut into small cubes
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
- zest from 1 orange
- melted butter
- demerara sugar (Sugar in the Raw is the brand name)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- juice from 1 orange
Procedure:
- Combine the dry ingredients together and cut in the the cubed butter. You can do this with a food processor, pastry cutter, or even your fingers as long as you move quickly. You want the largest pieces to be pea-sized in the end.
- Add in the milk and sour cream to the bowl, and then fold in the apricots and orange zest.
- The dough will be fairly sticky, so be sure to flour your work surface before dumping it out. Roll out the dough to roughly 3/4 inch thickness and cut into whatever shapes you want. I made them small so it would be easier for people to grab and go.
- Brush the tops of the scones with the melted butter and sprinkle with the demerara sugar.
- Bake in a 425 degree preheated oven for about 10 minutes. They won’t really brown very much just as an FYI.
- Set on a baking rack to cool.
- Combine the orange juice with the powdered sugar. You want the glaze to be able to be drizzled over the top of the scones, so the consistency may need to be adjusted with either more juice or powdered sugar.
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