Spiced Cranberry Eggnog Scones

Saturday mornings are meant for baking, especially if you're the type who naturally wakes up an hour before everyone else. I have always been 100% a morning person; once my eyes pop open there's nothing for it, I'm not going back to sleep. It's always worked out particularly well; everyone's usually waking up right when the baked goods come out of the oven.

Such can be the case with these pretty darn delicious Cranberry Eggnog Scones.  Don't know how you get much more Christmas-y than that. These could easily be prepped the night before Christmas morning as well; I would meaure all your dry ingredients into a bowl and cut the butter in, then cover that and wait to add the wet ingredients the following morning. It actually might turn out better scones because the extra-cold butter and flour will make for extra-light and fluffy scones once the butter hits the oven (the steam is what makes biscuits and scones fluffy and almost moist on the inside!)

I made these in the food processor, which is a great way to make scones, but if you have a little baby guy like mine it would be best to just make these by hands.  When you add the wet ingredients you only want to pulse for 2 or 3 pulses and my little guy was just too small to mix all the ingredients in such a short amount of time.  I actually inherited this 20-year old food processor that my mom used to make homemade pizza dough when we went home for Thanksgiving and I. love. it.  It makes Sunday cooking day a breeze and saves my eyes from watering while I'm chopping onions.

But back to these scones: They are moist and fluffy and wonderful, even with my over-processing, thanks to the low protein in the cake flour. I would definitely make these again, in the mixer or by hand, and they would turn out even better. These scones definitely call for jam; the fresh cranberries are wonderfully tart and the scones themselves barely sweet. Enjoy!

Spiced Cranberry Eggnog Scones 
adapted from The Complete Baking Cookbook by George Geary

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 3 T granulated sugar
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 6 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into small dice
• 2 eggs, beaten, divided
• 3/4 cup eggnog
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (do not thaw first if frozen)

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients, mixing well.
1. If mixing in a food processor, add the dry ingredients to the bowl and pulse several times to combine.
3. Cut in the butter with a fork, a pastry blender, or your hands (if mixing by hand I usually stick the dry ingredients in the freezer for 5 minutes or so after cutting in the fat to make up for the warmth of my hands)
1. If using a food processor, scatter the butter pieces evenly over the flour and pulse several times to combine. You don't want to pulse too much or the butter pieces will be too fine and your scones will not be as tender.
4. Set aside 1 T. of beaten egg (you can just put it in a 1/4 cup measuring cup or something until you're ready.) Whisk together the remaining egg and eggnog and add to the dry ingredients, stirring until almost combined (you will finish combining them in the next step and you don't want to overmix). 
1. If mixing in the food processor, beat the wet ingredients together in a small bowl and pour down the food processor chute, pulsing once or twice to combine.  Transfer to a large bowl and continue.
5. Add the cranberries, stirring just to combine.
6. The scones you see in the picture I made as drop scones: I just scooped the dough out with a muffin scoop and flattened the top slightly.  If you prefer, you can pat the dough into a 10-inch circle, place on your baking sheet and cut into 12 wedges with a bench scraper or pizza cutter (do not separate the wedges after cutting.) Brush with the remaining beaten egg, using a pastry brush if you have it or a fork if you don't.  Sprinkle with some raw sugar if you have it for beauty and crunch. 

Shaped scones brushed with beaten egg (would be great sprinkled with a little turbinado sugar!)

7. Bake in the preheated oven until puffed, light brown and gorgeous, 18 to 22 minutes.  Serve warm with eggnog coffee (have you ever used eggnog as coffee creamer? It's a good idea).

 

 

Fresh out of the oven.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Tis' the Season for Cookies: Or, the Importance of Butter

I'm pretty sure "The Importance of Butter" could just be the subtitle of every post, but in this case I'm referring to that little modicum none of us pay much attention to in ingredient lists: 3 sticks of butter, softened. While I am all for throwing things together in the kitchen, I definitely hold strong opinions about the proper temperature of butter in a recipe, or beside my bread at a nice restaurant for that matter. I know the kitchen is 80 degrees, why in the world would you give me a hockey puck of butter to spread on my it-had-better-be-warm roll? I feel the need to justify myself here: I won't actually send the bread and/or butter back, not at this point in my life anyway, but a restaurant that serves both warm bread and soft butter without question before my order comes is well on its way to earning repeat-visit status on my list before my entree arrives. A woman's got to have her principles. But let's focus on the butter, shall we?

Real life: Who actually bakes with room temperature butter? I don't know anyone with the forethought or patience to take butter out of the fridge an hour or two before baking, myself included. The problem being no one who gives two hoots about their stand mixer would make it try to turn a stick of rock-hard butter into a fluffy mass of goodness either, leaving the obvious solution of throwing that stick of butter into the microwave for a few seconds.  The problem with this is that you often end up with the concave-stick of butter thing going on when the middle of the butter begins to melt, thus changing the butter from a solid to a liquid (I know, duh) and inhibiting its ability to trap air, ultimately drastically changing the texture of your finished cake or cookie.

This particular baking mishap can be avoided by utilizing the Ben Affleck of microwave buttons (forgotten, but not gone): the power button. In my house we always reheated out leftovers on 80, our hot chocolate or coffee on 70, and only used 100% power when we actually wanted to cook something like frozen vegetables.  I'm just hazarding a guess that this is probably because my father read the manual of the first microwave they bought back in the 80s cover-to-cover and has been following their suggestions for the last 25 years. We're a family of instruction-followers, I'll admit it.

I usually microwave my butter at 20 or 30% power for a full 55 seconds, and after all that microwaving it still is only slightly softened, just at room temperature:

Yup, just throw the sticks in their still in their wrappers, straight from the fridge.

This technique also works great for cakes, which in my experience rise much better when all of the ingredients (butter, milk, eggs, etc.) are at room temperature, an experiment which can be addressed in other posts.

Now, on to the cookies! Does anyone else's family make Spritz cookies at Christmas? I am the proud inheritor of my family's 20+ year old cookie press and it still works like a champ.  I've never used the gun-style cookie presses they sell at craft stores now but I would be hard pressed to trade anything for my all-metal version. 

Because my mother tends to take much better care of her possessions than I do (note the original packaging) I imagine this cookie press will last another twenty years or so, until the next culinarily-inclined offspring inherits it.

Is there anything better than Christmas cookies and not-just-coffee-in-that-mug? I don't care if it's 65 outside, I'm going to pretend like it's Connecticut and I'm justified in warming myself up a little this afternoon. 







'Tis the Season: Spritz Cookies
p. 684 of The Gourmet Cookbook
Just go ahead and get yourself a copy if you don't have one already and thank me after your next dinner party. And Amazon definitely has no idea who I am and doesn't care whether or not you buy a copy by clicking on the link :)  Jus' sayin'.

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• Rounded 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened 
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Beat together butter, sugar, and extracts in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and beat well.  Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined.
4. Quarter dough. Put 1 piece into cookie press and, holding press slightly above an ungreased baking sheet, squeeze out dough to form cookies (follow manufacturer's instructions), spacing them about 3 inches apart. Form more cookies on additional baking sheets with remaining dough in same manner.
5. Bake cookies in batches until edges are golden, 10 to 15 minutes per batch. Transfer to racks to cool.

 These are so easy to dress up for Christmas by coloring the portions of dough red and green and/or sprinkling with colored sugar, sprinkles, etc.