Time to Myself Fail - Mom Syndrome

There are so many things a Mom SHOULD do when she gets a day to herself. She SHOULD curl up and read one of the many books she has been wanting to read. She SHOULD pamper herself with a pot of tea while she reads. She SHOULD treat herself to a bubble bath complete with candles and relaxing music. The reality is that while lying in the tub she gets grossed out at the state of the bathroom and ends up scrubbing the place top to bottom. As long as she's doing that, she may as well run the vacuum and mop the hardwoods and kitchen. Oh hey, if she's doing the floors in the kitchen she may as well clean that room too. Then it's 'holy shit! The kitchen is clean! I'm going to bake!'  It is called Mom Syndrome and I know many ladies who suffer and don't even know there is a name for it!

It really is a steep hill to slide down. Planning a day of r & r and doing all that. Thank goodness I make a point of NEVER touching the laundry. SIGH.......damn you Mom Syndrome!!!!!!

In case you haven't guessed, I did get the day to myself today. The boys went to Comic Con (they even bought me a shirt!) and I had planned to finish a book and relax in my jammies. That didn't quite happen. Well, staying in my Jammies all day did.

I did however manage to Make some delectable pumpkin scones today. I used this recipe from Taste of Home to use up some leftover pumpkin I had kicking around. I actually did not have any pumpkin pie spice but I used a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. Everything turned out delicious.

Pumpkin scones from Taste of Home

• 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I used a mixture of 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cold butter
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup milk plus 1/4 cup for brushing before baking

Preheat oven to 400 F

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Use the large holes on a grater, grate the butter into the dry ingredients and mix to coat the butter with flour. You want a mixture that is crumbly with small pieces if butter throughout.

In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients until it looks like a mass of gloppy pumpkin.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and start mixing.  You will end up with a mass of messiness.

Turn this messiness onto the counter and press it flat. Fold it over onto itself (the best you can at this point)  and press. Keep folding and pressing until it forms a nice rectangle of scone goodness. This folding is how you get the tasty and flaky layers of buttery goodness.Pat the dough into a long rectangle. Cut into 8 squares then cut each square into 2 triangles so you have 16 wedges.

Transfer the wedges to a baking sheet, brush with milk and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Mix together some icing sugar with a small amount of milk to make a glaze to drizzle over the cooled scones. You can even add some pumpkin pie spice to the glaze.

I managed to make enough of these to freeze for breakfasts and snacks this week!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.   (and rest up!)

Like a Rolling Scone

Once upon a time on a blog far, far, South from the the Little Kitchen, a man made scones....and they looked so amazing the Little Kitchen wanted to make it's own tasty little bundles of scone goodness.  What follows is a brief synopsis of the great Scone Adventure of 2011!

Cheddar, apple, walnut scone with chamomile tea

The other day I stopped by Stumptown Savoury to read a little bloggy goodness. Gareth not only made scones, but he posted a lovely tutorial on making scones. I learned a thing or two about scone making that I did not know before! If you haven't been over the the Stumptown Savoury, you should. Lots of great recipes and ideas over there.  I do love to bake, and I do love to bake bready goodness and all things related.  Tonight just felt like a baking night.  Middle of the week, chill in the air (yes, up here a mere -14C is considered a chill in the air), this all means a warm oven to bake with will help take the chill out of the house.

Just before I was going to get a start on the scones, I sent Gareth a tweet asking how the snowfall in his neck of the woods was and it was deep, especially for Tennessee!  He suggested that perhaps apples and walnuts would go well with cheddar.  I thought this was a fantastic idea and I even had all the ingredients!  (My son even went on to suggest this combination was genius!)  I am very grateful for the idea as sometimes I do have trouble coming up with combinations of flavours like this.  Perhaps I am just nervous about making the wrong combinations? Perhaps I have watched Gordon Ramsay berate one too many chefs for bad combinations?  Who knows, but it is nice to have some help on this issue every now and then.  These turned out absolutely fantastic!  So fantastic that you should all go visit Stumptown Savoury and make your own scones!!
I just know I can't do the scone tutorial justice so I am not even going to try.  What I will tell you is this:

The first batch I made tonight were apple, cheddar, walnut.  I mixed into the scones, as per the instructions:

• 1 apple, peeled and diced
• 1 cup shredded old cheddar cheese
• a couple of handfuls of walnut pieces (about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup)

What I learned about the scone making process was the folding the dough over on itself.  I don't think I have ever seen this instruction in any scone recipe I've seen.  I definitely noticed the lovely layers of yummy goodness  forming while you work.

The second batch I made tonight were maple raisin oat scones.  For this recipe I left out the sugar and replaced it with maple syrup.  This means I had to reduce the buttermilk by the same amount.  I also got a little fancy and brushed a couple of layers with maple syrup before I folded the dough.  Next thing was to brush the tops with maple syrup before baking....yummy!  (A glaze made with icing sugar and maple syrup also goes well on top) To the dough I added:

• 1 cup raisins
• a couple handfuls of oats (1/2 a cup)
• 3 tbsp maple syrup (leave out the sugar, reduce buttermilk by 3 tbsp)
• brush the tops with maple syrup and sprinkle some more oats on top.

Once the first batch of scones were hot from the oven, and I had a hot pot of chamomile tea was ready, everyone was happy!  

Maple raisin oat scone with maple glaze....yum!

Thank you again Gareth for the scone recipe!