Mountain of Apple Pie

It seems like just the other day I was writing about baskets of beautiful August tomatoes, and now suddenly it's fall. The boxes of berries, piles of tomatoes and crates of peaches at the greenmarket have been replaced by mountains of apples, bunches of dark greens and stacks of squash. And although I don't particularly like squash, it's every bit as inspiring and happy-making to ogle on my lunch break as summer fruits.

Fall is my absolute favorite season, not least because my birthday is in September (for which Nick gave me a new digital camera, which should significantly improve the quality of the photography here.) And one of the real joys of the season is apple pie - which is Nick's favorite, and definitely one of my top five, if not two. So, despite the fact that I have no food processor (my usual pie crust tool) I was determined to make an apple pie before the season escaped me, as peach pie season did. I figured that would entail investing in a $100 food processor, and was just about ready to pony up the cash. Then last week I decided to make empanadas (I need more practice before they become blog-worthy) mostly because I wanted to eat them. Well, the first step in empanada-making is dough-making and, as it turns out, empanada dough is a whole lot like pie dough. Except the empanada dough recipe I was using said to simply pinch the butter into the flour with your fingers. Which I did. And it was while my floury fingers were pinching butter (and begining to get tired) that I realized the technique was equally applicable to pie dough. Now, it wasn't the first time I'd considered making pie dough by hand, but it was the confirmation I needed that it would probably, most likely, work.

So with that knowledge in mind, I went to the greenmarket last Friday and bought as many apples as I could carry. I usually use Granny Smith for pie - the tartness and texture are both perfect and they don't turn mealy or into sauce in the oven - but apprently Granny Smith are not one of the several dozen apple varietes grown in the greater (much greater) New York City area. So I went for a mix of giant Mutsus and some red-and-green ones I forget the name of, unfortunately. The Mutsus tasted a little too much like Golden Delicious for my taste, but it didn't seem to negatively affect the taste of the pie. The red-and-green ones tasted a lot like Macintosh, which have a great flavor but tend to get a little too mushy in pie. I figured combining the perfect-texture apples and the perfect-taste apples would yield a happy-medium delicious pie, and I think I lucked out.

But of course, before apples even enter the apple-pie picture, you must make the dough. I've made strawberry-rhubarb pie here before, and the recipe is the same. The only thing I did differently this time was mixing everything by hand. So, if you don't have a food processor, here's what you do:

Whisk the dry ingredients together to blend. Cut the butter into small pieces, about 1/4 inch on each side, by standing it on its end and slicing twice, at right angles, lengthwise (so you have 4 long, skinny sticks of butter). Hold the sticks together and cut into 1/4 inch slices. The smaller you make them, the less tired your fingers will be later. I would also advise using a very sharp knife - cutting cold butter with a butter knife makes it break and takes more work, which warms up the butter. You want to keep you butter as cold as possible.

Dump all the little butter pieces into the bowl of dry ingredients and start pinching and squeezing it into the flour. It's an imprecise process, but you'll figure it out. Just keep breaking up the butter until the dough resembles coarse meal. The only piece of advice I have is to keep your hands in the bowl at all times, so the butter gets coated in flour as you squeeze it. When you've got your coarse meal, slowly pour in the ice water while mixing with a fork. When the dough is uniformly moistened, turn it out onto a clean counter and proceed as usual.

I use my mother's recipe for the apple filling, which is very simple and mostly apples. Peel the apples and cut them up into large chunks. I like to keep the pieces nice and big so they stay together in the pie. Toss the apple chunks in a VERY LARGE bowl with:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup flour
the juice of 1/2 a lemon
and 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon.

Then back to the dough, which has been chilling in the fridge (or freezer if you only have an hour or so.) Roll it out like in the strawberry rhubarb pie recipe, then fill with apples. I like to mound the apples up as high as humanly possible (see photo). My pie was at least 6 inches tall before cooking. I had to take the top rack out of the oven. Don't worry, they cook down a lot.

On top of your mountain of apples, slice 1 tablespoon of butter. Then cover with the second crust. I usually just do a regular solid crust for apple pie. Trim and crimp the edges. And don't forget to poke some holes in it! My mom likes five slits with a small knife, in a circle around the top (so of course I do too.) Then coat lightly with a mix of one egg white and a little bit of cream, beaten together (this was where my lack of kitchen tools became a real problem, I'm lacking a pastry brush and had to use my fingers, awkwardly.) Sprinkle with coarse non-melting sugar, and pop it in the oven! Bake for 15 minutes at 400º, then turn the heat down to 350º and bake for another hour, or until brown.

Enjoy warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you like. Then go jump in a pile of leaves for me! (I miss real trees.)

Breakfast in New York

I know, I know, I've been away a very long time. Apologies. But I've been busy! Two weeks ago, I moved to New York City with Nick, a very long, very exhausting process that ate up all my time for weeks. But we're here now and somewhat settled into our apartment, which has, I swear, the best kitchen in Manhattan. Lucky me! I've been making good use of it, cooking tasty, if simple, dinners every night. Some of the highlights have been spaghetti and meat balls, blue cheese burgers with cole slaw salad, beef tacos, soba noodle salad with marinated steak and, Nick's favorite, pork chops with mushroom risotto.

The one thing that's been lacking is baked goods - it's about 80 degrees out most days, and the one (tiny) downside to my enormous kitchen is that it's so big, it's hard to air condition effectively with our one window unit. So the heat has kind of deterred me from making anything too oven-intensive. The other obstacle was my lack of baking ingredients - flour, sugar and the like. We live in a 5th floor walkup, so I can only buy as much food as I can carry up 4 flights of stairs. I had to forgo the baking essentials in favor of dinner ingredients for many days. But then yesterday Nick came grocery shopping with me, so I stocked up. And this morning, I made pancakes!

Pancakes are, without a doubt, one of my favorite things to make and eat. I'm a total sucker for breakfast foods in all forms (my favorite words are "breakfast served all day") but pancakes make me especially happy. I think they make other people happy too. And I'm lucky enough to now own a Black & Decker electric griddle, courtesy of my lovely mother, that makes beautiful, evenly cooked pancakes every time. I've never had much luck with frying pan pancakes (ironic, given their name) so my griddle is a godsend. (They're super cheap at Target, if you're in the market.)

I realized that, although I make them all the time, I've never before published my pancake recipe - which is actually my mother's pancake recipe. It's not revolutionary or anything, but it makes super fluffy, delicious pancakes that are the best I've ever had. I'm going to share it with you now, but in return, you have to promise to treat the pancakes well.

That means you can only flip them once - more and they'll get tough.

That also means no store-bought frozen blueberries - they don't taste like anything. My family just happens to have a dozen blueberry bushes in our front yard, which means we have massive quantities of fresh berries in the summer and our freezer is full of flavorful frozen blueberries all winter. Unfortunately most people don't have that luxury and must buy their blueberries at a store. Fresh berries from a grocery store are fine in the summer, but they can be prohibitively expensive when they're out of season. So in the fall and winter, try something else. I love apple pancakes, my mom used to make them for my birthday (in September) all the time. Or just throw in some chocolate chips! They're never out of season, and they're always a big hit. Even better, mash up a banana and make banana-chocolate chip pancakes. Yum.

Finally, whatever you do, don't overmix the batter! Only mix until everything is combined - it should still have lumps in it. If you overmix, bad things will happen. And I will be very sad.

That being said, this is really a pretty simple recipe that uses a minimum of ingredients. You should be able to make delicious pancakes on your first try.

Mom's Blueberry Pancakes

2 cups cake flour (I have to admit, I couldn't find cake flour at the store yesterday, so I used regular old gold medal flour. It works fine, but try to get some cake flour, as it will make your pancakes lighter and fluffier.)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (we use coarse kosher salt, if you're using regular table salt you might want a tiny bit less, as it's saltier)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I usually use light or low fat)
3 Tb melted butter (unsalted, always)
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 pint fresh blueberries, or other fruit (I've used strawberries to good effect, and I especially like apples.)

Preheat a griddle - I set mine to about 300º, but you might need to experiment to get the best setting for your griddle. The pancakes should take a few minutes to brown, otherwise the center won't cook. Play around and see what works.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

2. Add the buttermilk, butter and eggs and mix just until combined. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. The batter should be thick but still somewhat viscous. If it's more solid than liquid (sits in a ball in the middle of the bowl, say) it won't spread out on the griddle and you might need to add a little more buttermilk. But not too much - it should be somewhere in between cake batter and bread dough, consistency wise.

3. Gently fold the blueberries in with the spatula.

4. Butter or spray your griddle. (Even if it's non-stick.) Scoop about 1/2 cup of pancake batter onto your griddle. It should spread out a bit, gradually, but still retain some height.

5. Let the pancake sit until bubbles begin to pop up on the surface. Gently lift with a spatula to check the underside, when it's a light golden brown flip the pancake over.

6. Let it sit on the second side for a couple more minutes. It should rise slightly as the center cooks. The second side usually cooks more quickly, so when you think it might be ready, take a peek to see if the bottom is light golden brown. When they're done, the pancakes should no longer be floppy. If they're too floppy, the centers aren't cooking and you need to turn your griddle down.

7. Top with some fresh fruit and maple syrup (not fake "pancake" syrup!), and enjoy!

Cooking from "Cooking for Mr. Latte"

I just finished Cooking for Mr. Latte, an engrossing, recipe-filled take on the food memoir genre that inspired me to put down the book and pick up a spatula. Admittedly, it also filled me with envy - what I wouldn't do to have Amanda Hesser's job. The lucky girl was a food writer for the New York Times, where she initially wrote "Mr. Latte" as a series of columns. They were cobbled together into this episodic book, which remains a series of closely related vignettes. They all focus on food, of course, and each concludes with a handful of promising recipes. Hesser has an MFK Fisher-influenced take on food and life, which is to say that life, love, food and friendship are all closely intertwined for her. She writes about food's power to bring people together, to create lasting memories, to challenge us and to define us. She's part of the contingent who truly believe you are what you eat (or cook or bake.)

Inspired by the stories behind her recipes and, admittedly, my envy of her life, I thought I'd try my hand at a few of Hesser's recipes. Unsurprisingly, because I am me, the two recipes I've tried are both baked desserts.

I settled on the first, Amanda's mother's Peach Tart, because I found myself in front of a giant pile of apricots at Whole Foods with the book in my purse. This is a really interesting, sort of bizare tart recipe. First of all, it's made in a square cake pan instead of a tart pan. Second, you mix the dough for the crust right in the pan. Third, there's olive oil in the dough – I thought this gave the tart and interesting Mediterranean sort of flavor, but my mother didn't like it (and she loves olive oil.)

I have to admit I kind of screwed up and mixed what Hesser calls "the pebbly mixture" (sugar, flour, salt and butter) into the apricots, rather than sprinkling it on top. Oops. (See picture, then don't do that.) I kind of liked the effect though, I thought it gave the impression that there was a custard between the apricot slices.

In any case, here's the recipe, the way I made it.

Judith Hesser's Peach Tart, with Apricots

1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tb Flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup olive oil (you could use vegetable oil if you agree with my mother)
2 Tb milk (I used skim)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla (the recipe says almond extract, but my mom hates almond extract, so we don't have any in the house)
2 Tb cold unsalted butter
8 or 9 Apricots, thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 425º. In an 8-inch square pan, stir together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. sugar.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk and vanilla or almond extract.

3. Pour the liquids into the pan and mix gently with a fork, just enough to dampen. Then use your hands to pat out the dough so that it covers the bottom of the pan and goes about 3/4 of an inch up the sides. Amanda says "This will be easy if you pat firmly and confidently, but not if you curl your fingertips into the dough." (I did as she said, and it was easy.)

4. In a bowl, combine 3/4 cup sugar, 2 Tb. flour, 1/4 tsp. salt and the butter. (I might've skimped on the flour a bit because the apricots weren't juicy at all.) Use your fingers to pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly, with a mixture of fine granules and tiny pebbles.

5. If you're Amanda: "arrange the peaches in rows over the pastry; they should fit snugly. Sprinkle the pebbly mixture over the top." But if you're me, toss the apricots with the pebbly mixture then dump the whole thing into the pan.

6. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, "until shiny, thick bubbles begin enveloping the fruit and the crust is nut brown." Or until it looks like this:

I thought it was delicious, my mom thought it was a bit too tart and had the aforementioned olive oil issue. Obviously, in order to really decide what we thought of Ms. Hesser, we had to make another recipe. Also, I needed something to give Miranda, who is kindly allowing me to crash on her couch in New York again tonight. We decided on the Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies on page 303.

Perhaps because they were devised as a cleaning-out-the-pantry project, these cookies call for a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Twenty-four ounces, to be exact. That's a lot of chocolate. Luckily, my mom keeps industrial amounts of baking supplies around the house. Also luckily, Julia was there to help me chop it all. Although she left before it was time to fold the chocolate, pecans and coconut into the dough, which was exhausting. As Amanda says, these cookies are really chocolate and pecans held together by some shreds of dough. My mom argued that it's okay to mix chocolate chunks in with the Kitchen Aid, but I didn't want them to be chocolate cookies. And the workout was worth it: the shards of chocolate made a nice pattern on the finished cookies that reminds me of straciatella gelato. They're really quite attractive, for cookies with everything but the kitchen sink in them. They're also, and this is key, delicious. The coconut makes them incredibly chewy, even the next day. They're not too sweet, but still have that great brown sugar taste. And, unsurprisingly, the ridiculous amount of chocolate was just enough. Congratulations Ms. Hesser, you've won.

(P.S. I don't have time right now to write out the cookie recipe, but would be happy to if anyone wants to make them. Or you could buy the book - it's awesome!)

Dana's Birthday!

My springform pan is quickly becoming the official cake pan of birthdays at 106 Governor Street. As you may remember, I bought it for Nick's Ice Cream Cake, a delicious if unwieldy creation. Sunday was Dana's birthday, and although she's game for pretty much anything sweet, fluffy and delicious, she has a soft spot for cheesecake.

I've never made a cheesecake before, in fact, I don't even like cheesecake that much. Dana, on the other hand, considers herself something of a cheesecake connoisseur, so I was understandably nervous. But then I found this easy recipe on the Bon Appetit Project Recipe Blog, and figured if Bridget could do it, I could too. (I even have a metal food processor blade! Actually, it's Vicky's, so I only have it for another 6 days.)

Conveniently, Seth had whisked Dana away to Cape Cod for her birthday, so I had all of Sunday to work on my cakes. I dragged Nick through the grocery store Sunday morning and got started right away.

As the Bon Appetit bloggers pointed out, the theme of this cheesecake is food processing. First, in go the butter and shortbread cookies (I used Walker's, and while it didn't resemble a crust at first, it turned out delicious. Even Dana thought so.)

The rest of the ingredients are basically just thrown into the food processor together, then poured into the pre-baked crust. Although Bon Appetit blogger Chris cautions against using too many pre-processed ingredients, I used Philadelphia cream cheese because that's what my mom bakes with. (And if you've ever eaten something she's baked, you understand why this is reason enough.) I did take Chris up on his suggestion to leave out the almond extract, mostly because I'm moving out in a week and already have an almost-full bottle of bourbon extract to use up somehow (if I added it to cheap vodka would it taste like whiskey?)

I had no idea how to tell when a cheesecake was done, but apparently I guessed right, because the cheesecake received rave reviews. Even Dana, cheesecake connoisseur, said it was among the best cheesecakes she'd ever had. Victory!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

My mom used to grow rhubarb in our front yard when I was little. Sometime in May, the stalks would begin to turn bright red, and I could traipse out front as I pleased and yank out a stalk to much on. I remember pulling so hard at times that I would fall over backward when the stalk finally came free. (Only recently did my grandmother - the gardener, not the baker - inform me that this can easily be avoided by pulling the stalk at an angle to the ground. But where's the fun in that?)

Every year (or on two separate occasions at the very least) this gangly plant became the star of the Rhubarb Olympics – a series of pint-sized sporting events featuring rhubarb in some way. I can't actually remember what they were, but one definitely entailed running with rhubarb and another somehow involved wearing its giant leaf as a hat.

For those too old to enjoy running around with poisonous leaves on their heads, rhubarb season meant strawberry-rhubarb pie – and lots of it.

But despite my long history of pie-eating, this May marked the first rhubarb season of my pie-making life. Remembering the taste of my mother's pies, I made several pilgrimages to the grocery store in search of that flavor. The first few trips turned up nothing but the same root vegetables of Winter and asparagus of early Spring. But as the price of strawberries began to fall toward affordable levels, I knew it couldn't be long. And then, one day, lo and behold! Rhubarb! It had been denuded of its poisonous leaves and sat unassumingly in a small basket, dwarfed by the towers of more popular vegetables. But among the floppy ruby-colored pieces and the thin green ones were a handful of the firm candy-apple colored stalks of my childhood. I gathered them up, brought them home and attempted to cajole my roommates into eating some. Vicky was the only taker, and was pleasantly surprised to find it did not taste like celery. I knew what it tasted like, but I wasn't expecting to feel eight years old after the first bite. It was such a throwback to my childhood I half expected to shrink until my eyes were level with the counters (although I'm probably underestimating my eight-year-old height.)

Luckily, I stayed tall enough to roll out dough, because the pie that resulted was a much bigger hit with the roomies than the raw rhubarb had been. To make your own slice of childhood, you'll need enough rhubarb and strawberries to fill your pie dish. You want the fruit to make a nice big mound, because it will cook down a lot. I like to do half rhubarb and half strawberries, but if you're not sure how you feel about rhubarb, feel free to tilt the balance toward strawberries. Just compensate by cutting down on the sugar. Alternatively, put in twice as much rhubarb as strawberries, and add a half-cup of sugar. For my 9" pie, I probably used about 9 firm pink rhubarb stalks and a pound and a half of strawberries.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

For Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Sugar
2 sticks cold Unsalted Butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup ice water

For Filling:
Strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced in half (or smaller pieces if very large)
Rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/2-inch slices
3/4 cup Sugar (if doing half-and-half)
1/3 cup Flour

For Finishing:
1 Egg White
Light Cream (or some other kind of cream, it doesn't seem to matter)
Sparkling Sugar

Making pie is a two-step process best spread over two days (in my opinion.) The first day is for making the dough, the second is for making it into a pie. In between, the dough sits in the fridge and gets nice and cold, which makes it much easier to roll without it breaking into a million pieces.

Day One:

Blend flour, salt, sugar and butter in a food processor just until butter forms pea-sized balls. Do not overmix. Pour water (no ice!) into running food processor in a steady stream (pour slowly, but it should take no more than three seconds or so.)

Turn crumbly dough out onto a clean surface and divide into two piles, one slightly smaller than the other. With your hands, forcefully but quickly knead each pile into a cohesive cake of dough, shoring up the sides as necessary to prevent cracking. This took me many pies to master, but never fear, even if your dough is a disaster, the pie usually still tastes great.

Slide each cake into the corner of a separate plastic bag and, if necessary, press down until it is about 1/2 inch thick. The thinner your dough cake is, the easier it will be to roll out. That being said, if it gets too thin, it will fall apart. Use your judgment.

Place both doughs in the fridge, on a flat surface, with nothing on top of them.

Day Two:

Preheat the oven to 400º. Place a piece of tinfoil on the top rack, to catch dripping juices from the pie.

First, make the filling. You might want to sprinkle the rhubarb with a little water first so the flour sticks better, or you can just toss it with the strawberries if they're damp. Then mix in the flour and sugar.

Now it's time to roll the dough. When I do this at home, I start by covering one of my mother's lovely marble counter tops with ice packs first to let it get nice and cold. But my counters here are some sort of laminate that is a pretty much constant temperature, besides which they're too small to accommodate dough rolling. So instead I use a cheapo fake wood desk that was in the hallway when we moved in (it's in the kitchen now and I've cleaned it thoroughly.) Not only is the desk a good height for putting your whole weight behind the rolling (my arms are skinny weak little things) but the fake wood laminate seems to have magical non-stick properties. All in all, I'm surprised to say I'm going to miss it.

In any case, you can use whatever you like to roll out your dough, just sprinkle it with a little flour first. Also sprinkle your rolling pin. (Mine is OXO from Target and I love it!) Then take the larger dough cake out of the fridge and sprinkle it with a little flour too. Roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick, flouring the top and bottom as needed to prevent sticking. Cut out a circle about an inch larger than your pie dish, then gently lift the dough into the dish.

Fill the dish with your strawberry and rhubarb filling, and slice a tablespoon of butter over the top.

To make a lattice crust, roll out the second dough then slice it into strips. A lattice is actually easier to make than you might think – check out this video on bonappetit.com if you've never done it before. (Oh, how I wish I had a pastry wheel!)

Finally, to finish off the pie, curl the bottom crust up over the edges of the lattice strips, or tuck them under if you'd rather. Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the top crust with a mixture of egg white and a little cream, then sprinkle with sparkling sugar.

Slide the pie into the oven, on top of the tinfoil. Bake for 15 minutes at 400º, then turn the oven down to 350º and bake for another hour, or until the crust is golden brown.

Mother's Day Brunch

My mom's one request for Mother's Day was that she not have to decide what to eat, nor cook. So my sister Addie and I shouldered the culinary duties for the day, which we decided to pare down to 2 meals: brunch and dinner. Dinner would just be my family, but we had my grandparents and some cousins over for brunch. The larger quantity of food required wasn't so intimidating as the fact that I would be cooking for both my mother and my grandmother – the best cooks I know and the source of most of my kitchen wisdom. All my best recipes are theirs, and they make them better. I took a two-pronged approach to compensate for my third-generation handicap: frittatas and scones.

Frittatas (my dad's idea) are something my mother never makes, but they're pretty easy, and my roomies and I pulled off a pretty good one for brunch earlier this semester. And it turns out I had a secret weapon in the kitchen: apparently Addie is a frittata master. What I didn't have was time to go to the grocery store, so these were whatever-is-in-the-fridge frittatas. Because my mom's fridge is like a grocery store, that meant one kid-friendly swiss-bacon-potato frittata and one feta-zucchini-asparagus-tomato frittata (we used goat feta, which I wholly recommend trying.) Luckily my aunt and uncle raise chickens down the road, so acquiring another dozen eggs at the last minute wasn't a problem. As a bonus, truly farm fresh eggs have enormous, bright orange yolks that gave the frittatas a beautiful golden color. Lacking frittata pans (something that's both stovetop and oven safe, like a cast-iron frying pan) we took the rubber handles off my mom's enormous aluminum frying pans to make some. They worked great and both frittatas were delicious (although the veggie one was first to disappear.)
To make a Frittata: Simply sauté the fillings you're using in the frittata/frying pan with a little olive oil until softened and/or browned. (Cook things like bacon or asparagus beforehand.) Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. (We used a dozen per frittata, but most peoples' frying pans aren't that large.) Pour the eggs over, and let set, lifting the edges occasionally to let uncooked egg flow underneath. Sprinkle with cheese and cook until bubbling and somewhat set around the edges. Then throw it under the preheated broiler until set in the middle. Voilà!

My second prong of attack was scones, which my mom used to make all the time. I'd gotten her recipe and made them for Nick and the roomies a couple weeks ago, with frozen blueberries I'd stolen from the freezer at home. (More on our perennial stash of frozen blueberries later.) They were pretty good, but I thought they could be improved upon. Specifically, I wanted to flavor the batter somehow. So for mother's day I decided to make orange scones, and bought an enormous bag of organic Valencia oranges to zest (this part I did plan ahead.) Then Nick, in a rare moment of culinary genius (no offense; he makes good sandwiches) suggested I make cranberry orange scones, which I thought sounded like a brilliant idea. Luckily, my grocery store of a freezer had some cranberries in it. Finally, I decided to finish the scones with an orange glaze. It made them a lot sweeter, so it might not be the best thing for an early breakfast, but at 11:30 it was a nice touch that eliminated the original scones' need for jam (in my opinion.)

We rounded out the meal with a mixed greens salad and had strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. To drink, mimosas (which are fantastic with fresh-squeezed Valencia orange juice) and coffee (which is always fantastic.)

Cranberry-Orange Scones

I wish I could put my mother's original recipe for "British Scones" here; it's illustrated with the most adorable little scones and a pot of tea. But I don't have a scanner, and it's a bit lacking in instructions anyway. (She writes recipes only decipherable by people with a great deal of "kitchen intuition," fairly common in my family but something I'm still working on.) So here's my version:

For Scones:
4 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, very softened (if it's not warm out, microwave it)
2 Tbsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
2 cups Flour
2 Tbsp. Baking Powder
2 Eggs, beaten
1/2 cup Milk
1 Tbsp. Orange Zest (or more)
1 cup fresh whole Cranberries, roughly chopped (use a food processor)

For Glaze:
2 Tbsp. fresh-squeezed Orange Juice
Confectioners' Sugar
1 tsp. Orange Zest

To make the Scones

Preheat oven to 400º and lightly coat a large baking sheet with nonstick spray.

Cream the butter and sugar briefly until combined. In a separate bowl mix salt, flour and baking powder. Mix into butter/sugar until combined. Add eggs, milk and orange zest and mix just until almost combined, then fold in cranberries until combined. (Use your hands.)

The dough will be very thick and sticky. Form it into a ball, more or less, and let it sit in the bowl for 2 minutes.

Lightly flour a wooden cutting board. (If you don't have one, lightly flour something else flat.)

Place the dough on the board (it should be less sticky now) and pat it out until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into 6 or 8 wedges (like a pizza) and gently place them on the baking sheet.

If not using the glaze, it's nice to sprinkle the scones with some sparkling sugar at this point.

Bake the scones 10-12 minutes, until puffed and slightly golden on the edges.

Let cool.

To make the Glaze

Pour the orange juice into a small bowl, and add confectioners' sugar, whisking constantly, until it's the consistency of... a glaze. Um, it should be slightly thick but still drip slowly off the whisk when lifted. "Use your judgment," as my mother would say. Whisk in the orange zest at the end.

Glaze the scones by pouring or drizzling the glaze on with a spoon. Let sit a few minutes, until the glaze has hardened enough to put them in an attractive basket. Use your judgment.