Chocolate Chip Scones

I love Pinterest! I just thought Id start with that little intro ;). I saw this recipe on Pinterest a few evenings ago and thought it looked good, so I pinned it for a future time...little did I know that future time would be just a day or two later ;) Dad bought chocolate chips yesterday while at the store and I got to work on making these scones!

And I have to say that after two failed attempts on making banana bread in our bread machine these nicely replaced my confidence :) I was pretty upset to learn I couldn't conquer a bread machine but I've know decided that it was the bread machines fault altogether!!

I know you all want to try these nice tasty little scones that just go perfectly with tea! Speaking of which, I now have my next week's thought for tea time picture!

Chocolate Chip Scones

Ingredients:

2 3/4 c. All-purpose Flour,

1/3 c. Sugar,

3/4 tsp. Salt,

1 Tbsp. Baking Powder,

1/2 c. Chocolate Chips,

2 large Eggs,

2 tsp. Vanilla,

1/2 c. to 2/3 c. Milk

Glaze:

3 1/2 c. Powder Sugar

7 Tbsp. Water

1 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:

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

2. Work in butter just until mixture is unevenly crumbly; it's ok for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated. 

3. Stir in Chocolate Chips.

4. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, and 1/2 c. milk.

5. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until all is moistened and holds together.

Stir in additional milk if the dough seems dry, and doesn't come together (I had to do that).

6. Scrape the dough onto a well-floured work surface. Pat/roll it into a 8" to 8 1/2" square, a scant 3/4" thick. Make sure the underneath is very well floured.

7. Cut the square into 2" squares and then cut each square in half diagonally, (I floured my knife and it worked better!).

8. Transfer the scones to a well-greased (or parchment paper lined) baking dish. They can be set fairly close together.

9. For the best texture and highest rise, place the pan into the freezer for 30 minutes, uncovered. Preheat your oven in this time to 425*F.

10. Bake for 19-20 minutes, until the scones are golden brown! I transferred mine after the freezer into a new baking dish to avoid cracking or braking with the temperature change.

11. Make the glaze now. If your sugar seems lumpy sift it before making, for an extra smooth glaze.

12. Now, glaze each scone! I used a pastry brush and glazed the tops, let it harden, then dipped the bottoms in glaze and set upside down to harden that. If you want additional yummy glaze tops then glaze as much as you'd like ;)

I glazed the scones over a rack in a sheet cake pan to catch the drippings!

13. Put your tea kettle on, invite a friend, make some tea, and serve with these yummy chocolate chip glazed scones!!

These are way delicious and are a new favorite recipe in our home!

This recipe came from the King Arthur Flour website, but the pictures are mine :) If you're pinning to Pinterest please leave my link in caption!

Happy baking!!

French Puffs

There are many different recipes for these delicious French puff muffins! When I made these ones I just used a recipe from the web and don't recall where it was from, but like I said you can find a recipe quite easily!

They make the most delicious snack or quick breakfast and taste SO wonderful!! I highly recommend finding a recipe, putting on your apron and heading to the kitchen for these!!

Homemade Granola Bars

So I don't know what's quite gotten into me but I have been so interested in taking some creative work into the kitchen and have spent quite a bit of time lately looking through recipes and food pictures for inspiration! A wonderful site I just discovered has not been too bad with giving out inspiration :) Amy at fearlesshomemaker.com is truly fearless with her lovely kitchen attempts! I am still going through the pages and pages of recipes on her site!
I've now tried 2 of them myself, the cinnamon roll muffins and now these delicious homemade granola bars...
Homemade Granola Bars:
Ingredients
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups cooking oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips (plus an additional 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chis if you'd like a little extra chocolate!)
Directions...

Lightly grease a baking pan, set aside.

Mix the crispy rice cereal and oats together, set aside.

In small pot, melt butter, honey and brown sugar together (I cut the butter into smaller pieces) over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. reduce heat and cook 2 minutes, until the sugar dissolves. Carefully pour in vanilla extract (it will bubble up a bit), a pinch of salt and stir. Remove from heat.

Pour syrup mixture over dry ingredients and mix well to moisten all ingredients.

 If you'd like extra chocolate version fold in 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips. Pour into your greased baking pan and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness. If your pan isn't small enough, pack the mixture into one side (this is what I did). You really want to press them down so they stick together. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips and press down lightly.

Cool on a counter top at room temperature for 2 hours or until the chocolate chips are set before cutting into bars. Note: I put mine in the frig for a little while (not too long), just to speed up the process a little! Store in airtight container at room temperature (our's didn't make it far enough for this tip!).

My personal advise: Don't measure the chocolate chips! Ok, maybe not the healthiest advise, but goodness, its chocolate! In fact, while my bars were setting, I put some chocolate chips, little bit of butter, vanilla and brown sugar and a splash of milk in a small pan and melted them together. Then dipped a few of the bars in the chocolate, which gave them a nice chocolate layer on the bottom! They were really good ;)

Anyways, if you're a health nut, then these will suit you because you can make them healthy style with a little less chocolate and more nuts, seeds, ect. And if you're a not-so-healthy person these will suit you because you can add as much or as little chocolate to them as you'd like :)

These were delicious and were gone before the night was out :) I loved making them and am excited to have this recipe to go to if I need to make something simple, easy and what everyone can enjoy! They're great for snacks, bake sale items, gifts, and hikes/outings! Quite a good way to avoid buying any granola bars with all those wrong ingredients from the store!

Enjoy!

Delicious Sunday Morning Breakfast!

Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Sunday morning I made these cinnamon roll muffins for breakfast. It was such a delightful experience to be up before everyone else, and baking in a still quiet house! As a baked I even watched a moose eating outside our back window...it was all a lovely 'good-morning!'.

While our oven has been down (now for quite some time) we have needed to be creative in our baking abilities, we are limited to 9x13in pan and muffin tin pan, which sounds easy enough but really not many recipes work in the roaster oven which we use (not the same amount of heat as an oven). Finding a recipe like this is sure excting and I was desperatly hoping that they would turn out...boy, were my hopes met!

These were so good...and easy to make :) I will definitely be keeping this recipe!

This is a delicious recipe and one you should have on hand in your kitchen! To find the recipe go to here...Fearless Homemaker

Enjoy and I hope to be back later this week with another recipe!

A wonderul new Recipe

Well I had posts planned for this week but so far none of them have come into being so I will just post this delightful new recipe we just discovered this afternoon!

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Recipe:
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1tsp vanilla
1tsp almond flavoring
3/4 cup milk
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups blueberries
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp lemon rind (optional)
1/2 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter

Cream sugar, shortening, egg and flavorings. Add milk, flour, baking powder and salt. Stir only till mixed. Spread 1/2 batter into 9"x9" pan (I used a 8"x8" pan and it didn't seem to make a difference). Sprinkle blueberries, fresh or frozen, 2 tbsp sugar and lemon rind on top and spread rest of batter over. Sprinkle with topping made of 1/2 cup flour, 1 cup brown sugar and 1/4 butter.
Bake at 350*F for 30-40 minutes.

And enjoy!