Strawberry Ricotta Scones

One sweltering and blindingly sunny summer day an eternity ago, we went strawberry picking. After shortcakes, smoothies, balsamic strawberry jam with cracked pepper, and much strawberry limeade, we ended up with about 5 pounds of berries in the freezer, where they've been hanging out gathering ice crystals ever since. Obviously, it's time to use them before the next strawberry season rolls around, but any old smoothie won't do for these conserved nibble-size beauts. Hard-earned berries require something special.

A few months ago I made these egg-free Blackberry Meyer Lemon Ricotta Scones and I haven't been able to shake their legacy since. Is there a better place to nestle sweet tender summer berries in the dead of winter than in between flaky warm layers of whole wheat ricotta scones? I for one think not.

Strawberry Ricotta Scones
adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar*
1/2 tsp kosher salt
6 tbsp cold, unsalted butter
1 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen), coarsely chopped
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup buttermilk

*I upped the sugar just a tad from the original recipe because well, I like sugar, but what I really mean to say is that it offsets the tartness of these particular strawberries. Let your berries be your guide and if yours are particularly sweet, feel free to reduce down to 1/4 cup of sugar.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat or parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together both flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the largest bits are about the size of a small pea. Be patient. It will happen.

Chop the berries coarsely (some big hunks are good!) and add to the flour mixture. Stir to combine.

Add the ricotta and buttermilk all at once. Stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Knead the dough a few times with your hands then dump it out onto a well-floured surface. Pat the dough into a round about 2 inches high. You can add a little more flour to the top of the dough to prevent it from sticking to your hands if it's super sticky.

Use a sharp knife and a steady hand to slice the round into 8 even wedges. Carefully transfer each wedge to the prepared baking sheet.

Bake 15-18 minutes until the scones are golden brown and dry and crisp at the edges. Remove the pan from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring the scones to a wire rack to cool completely.

If you really want to do it up, serve them alongside balsamic strawberry jam with cracked pepper or vanilla mascarpone cream. May the sweet flavor sustain you until the return of berry season!

Bacon Chocolate Chip Biscuits

Roo has a thing for Mo's Dark Chocolate Bacon Bar from Vosges. In fact he relishes his "chocolate bacon" so much that he received the Mini Bacon Chocolate Library for Christmas. By now we're all well-versed in the trend. Bacon and chocolate, chocolate and bacon. Old news, right?

But how about the crispest brown sugar-crusted bacon to ever grace your lips entwined with gooey, bittersweet chocolate wrapped in the warm buttery hug of a fluffy, buttermilk biscuit?

That's what I thought.

This all started because Deb over at Smitten Kitchen has this recipe in her killer new cookbook (which, in my house is already dog-eared and exploding with butter stains and a rainbow of post-it-notes) for Maple Bacon Biscuits. I like bacon. Bacon is my friend. There's a jar of bacon grease living on my kitchen window sill. It's kind of like a sun catcher but way more utilitarian. But maple syrup? Eh.

Born and raised in the Great Northeast it's a sacrilege to shun maple syrup, but I can't help it. It just doesn't do it for me, unless it's in a cocktail shaker with a few fingers of bourbon and lots of freshly squeezed lemon juice but that's a story for another day.

 Chocolate, though. Chocolate I can get behind in all its guises.

We're going to be candying some bacon in a minute here. It's crucial to point out that once you have completed this process you will never be the same. From this day forward you will in all likelihood require brown sugar-crusted bacon on peanut butter (or in our case, SunButter) toast. You will sprinkle it on frosted cupcakes. You will use it to garnish pasta, spinach salads, and in homemade granola. You might even find yourself tossing the last few crumbles into a French press along with the coffee grounds just to see. I thought I had better let you know.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Biscuits
Inspired by The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
makes 12 2-inch biscuits

6 slices thick-cut bacon (about 6 ounces)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick) cold butter, diced
4 tbsp cold bacon fat (or 4 additional tbsp cold butter, diced)
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1 scant cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil (trust me here). Place a metal cross wire cooling rack on top of the foil lined baking sheet. Spread the brown sugar in a shallow dish and dredge the bacon slices from tip to tail on both sides, pressing the sugar to make it stick. Lay the coated bacon on the wire rack. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the bacon is very crisp and dark at the edges. Let the bacon cool slightly, use a spatula to release the strips from the wire rack, then cool completely. Chop into small pieces.

Turn the oven up to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat mat. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Use a pastry cutter or two forks to cut in the cold butter and bacon fat until the largest clumps are the size of small peas. (If you don't happen to keep a jar of bacon fat on your window sill like me, all is not lost. You can safely substitute more butter for the bacon fat, though I suggest you consider reserving your bacon grease going forward. Try it on roasted Brussels sprouts instead of oil and top with what else? Candied bacon!)

Stir in the chopped bacon bits and chocolate chips. Add the buttermilk all at once and stir gently until just combined. Dump the dough onto a well floured surface and knead it a couple of times until it holds together. The less you handle it the better. Gently press the dough to a 1-inch thickness. Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter or inverted drinking glass to cut out 12 biscuits. Place the biscuits on the parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until the tops are light golden brown.

Cheesy Pinwheel Buns

In line with my current engrossment with The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, we used a recent day off from school to make a version of Deb's Cheddar Swirl Breakfast Buns. Since the KC kids are not huge dill fans, we opted to leave that part out and replaced some of the cheddar cheese with our family fave, Parmesan.

The munchkins had so much fun making dough.

Yeast is still a magic potion for them. They can't get enough of watching dough rise.

Cheesy Pinwheel Buns
adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
makes 12 buns

For the dough
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
1 (1/4-ounce or 2&1/4 tsp) packet instant yeast
1 cup milk
4 tbsp butter, melted and slightly cooled

For the filling
1/2 cup grated onion
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
dash black pepper

1. Whisk together the flour, salt, pepper, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. In a separate small bowl, combine the yeast and milk. Whisk until the yeast dissolves. Pour the yeast-milk mixture and the melted butter into the flour mixture and mix using the paddle attachment on your mixer, or a wooden spoon if you're looking for an upper body workout, until the dough is holds together in a raggedy mass.
2. Switch to the dough hook and knead for 5-6 minutes on low speed, or if you're going the old fashioned route, dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it with your hands for 8 minutes. In either case the kneading is done when the dough is nice and smooth and just barely sticky to the touch. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray or wipe the the bottom and sides with oil and transfer the dough ball to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest in a warmish place for a couple of hours until it has doubled in size, like this (and yes, that is my son in a tutu, he always dresses his best for baking):

3. On a well floured surface, roll the dough out into a rectangle (about 12 x 16 inches or as close as you can get).

4. Mix together the onion, both cheeses, salt and pepper. Spread the filling over the dough leaving a 1/2-inch border at both short ends.

5. Start rolling from one short end to the other to make a log. Cut the log into 12 equal slices with a sharp knife.

6. Line a pan of your choice (two 9-inch rounds or one 9x13-inch rectangular pan) with parchment. Place the rolls cut-side up into the prepared pans, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again until they have doubled in size. (Deb recommends brushing the tops with melted butter at this point. We skipped it and still got beautiful yummy buns so take your pick).
7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the buns have doubled in size, pop them in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. You'll know they're done when the cheese is oozing out the top and starting to brown in places. Cool slightly on a wire rack and serve warm.

These fill the house with really good smells. So good in fact that my photo session was cut short by a band of hungry monkeys demanding to be fed. Yup, that's a diffuser behind Roo and that's him eating my prop. I suppose that's success if I've ever had any.

Alive and Well

Happy New Year!

Yes, I am in fact still here. The last few weeks have been quite a ride...a super fun, action packed, noisy, cork-popping, cookie-filled, laughter-inducing ride but it's time to hop off now.

2 weeks with no school, 11 house guests, 2 major holidays, 7 rolls of wrapping paper, 8 airport runs, one 17-pound roast beast, 0 missed Insanity workouts (dig deeper, right?) and way too many new toys, books, and art supplies to count have left me gasping for air. Happily, no one starved or had to sleep on the dreaded air mattress (I know Aerobed makes a super comfy one but trust me, this ain't no Aerobed). Of course it just wouldn't be Christmas without a scuffle or two but for the most part everyone came out unscathed. Thanks so much to all of our wonderful family and friends that put forth the effort and expense to come spend time with us and make merry this Christmas and New Year!

Today it's back to reality. All 3 of the munchkins are back at school, the tree is out, the lights are down, the stockings packed and sadly there's no excuse to eat a piece of fudge right now or start drinking before 5 pm.

Fortunately I have a few new toys of my own to help me through the transition! Thanks to a somewhat miraculous survival football pool victory this season, I have a brand spanking new tripod and ball head scheduled to arrive today. I can't wait since my "starter" tripod shakes more than my hands and that's on the rare occasion I can get the camera screwed down properly. I haven't used it in months because it's more trouble than it's worth. I'm also learning the ropes of Photoshop Lightroom and working on my RAW photo editing skills. Last but not least I'm catching up on current issues of Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, and Food Network Magazine and flipping through my newest additions: The Food 52 Cookbook Volume 2, Barefoot Contessa Foolproof, and The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. No shortage of inspiration over here!

Whole Wheat Blackberry and Meyer Lemon Ricotta Scones

Blackberry. Ricotta. Meyer lemons. Uh-huh.

I've been on the prowl for a superstar egg-free scone recipe for some time. Leave it to Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen food blogger extraordinaire and author of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook to have my back. She has a luscious recipe for whole wheat raspberry ricotta scones (no eggs!) that has been calling my name since I stumbled upon it months ago.

Sadly, winter raspberries in Chicago always look like they've been pre-chewed by the time I get to them. And while still far from the plump farmers market jewels we get in August, November grocery store blackberries seem to hold up better to the wear and tear of stock boys and throngs of Thanksgiving shoppers. And the Meyer lemons? They were winking at me across the aisle, glinting their sunny skins right into my eyes, refusing to be ignored.

Whole Wheat Blackberry and Meyer Lemon Ricotta Scones
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup granulated sugar*
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp cold, unsalted butter
1 cup fresh blackberries, lightly chopped into halves and quarters
1 Meyer lemon (or regular lemon), zest and juice
3/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/3 cup heavy cream

*The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of sugar, but since I wasn't sprinkling any coarse sugar on top of these babies and I wanted to make sure the kiddos would love them, I upped it ever so slightly. 

1. Preheat the over to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the biggest chunks are no larger than a small pea. This might take a few minutes. Be patient.
2. Add the chopped blackberries and lemon zest to the flour-butter mixture. Stir to combine.

3. Add the juice from the lemon, ricotta, and heavy cream all at once. Stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Knead the dough a few times with your hands. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and pat it into a circular mound.

4. Use a sharp knife and a steady hand to cut eight wedges and transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

5. Bake about 15 minutes until golden brown and crisp at the edges. Allow scones to cool on the pan for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. These are best the day they are baked, but can be frozen and reheated in the oven in a pinch.

Ridiculous, right? These are so freakin' good. Looly polished one off before she took her coat off after school. I would have scolded her but the truth is that mine never even made it onto the cooling rack.

 I'm thinking cranberry-blood orange scones for Christmas morning. What do you think?