Tea for Two

Well, OK. Tea for one..

Cue angelic choirs of exaltation

To quote my friend (slash inspiration/inter-state co-conspirator for this post): "I F*@!ng love tea time". It's an oxymoron of types, obviously - as you can't really imagine a proper British lady spewing such a profanely awesome sentence. One can only imagine that she would react, well, exactly like this. Maybe she'd throw in a good "Well. I never!" while she was at it. Well, this is Tea Time - Julie Style. Profanities welcome. And encouraged. And cheese. Cheese is very much encouraged.


Por ejemplo:

Cheddar Apple Chive Scones
(makes 8 gigantic scones)

I totally stole this recipe (with some straying) from the aforementioned friend/partner in tea-related crime/potty mouth - the creator of this, my new favorite food blog, In My Itty Bitty Kitchen. So very worth stalking.

Anyways...back to the scones

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour (her recipe called for less but my dough was super wet, so I added more)

1/2 cup medium grind white (or yellow) cornmeal

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3.5 ounces Cheddar cheese, cut into little cubes (about 1/2-3/4 cup) - fairly positive I used a cup and a half..."oops"

Handful of chives, diced

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 to 10 pieces

1/2 cup cold buttermilk

1/4 cup cold milk

1 cold egg

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

Pretty little ingredient maids. All in a row.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cheese (in honor of St. Patty's I used Dubliner cheddar) and chives together. Add the butter, and either whisk or use a hand blender to incorporate it until those chilly-buttery chunks are about the size of peas. Now, here is the main area in which I strayed. When my friend made her Apple Cheddar scones, she diced her apples and roasted them pre-mixing. I? I was impatient. So, what I did was grate the apple. Skin and all. Right into the flourcheesebutter. I used only one, actually, because I got a little lazy, but when I make these again, and make these again I shall, I will put the nominal extra effort in a grate that second apple.

In a different, teeny bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, whole egg, and milk until well blended. With your whisk (or with a beater on low) add the buttermilk mixture to the flourcheesebutter or until the dough just comes together. Mix it any more than needed and it'll get all tough and non-tender. Again, my dough was wet, so I added just a bit more flour until it was manageable.

Put the dough onto a baking sheet and pat it into a circle until it's about an inch thick. Brush the top of the circle evenly with the egg yolk (or some heavy cream, if you have it).

Hello, scones.

Score that sconey-circle into 8 gigantor pieces - and bake for 30-40 minutes.


While you wait...

Make yourself some tea!

Put on an old, wonderful movie (like, say, My Man Godfrey)

Steep that Irish Afternoon tea.

Stare into the warm glow of your local, raw honey

Gah! They'rereadythey'rereadythey'reready ohmygodohmygod giddy giddy little girl. Look. at. the sheer amount of cheese. Oh man. I guess technically you're supposed to let them cool for a while or something. I just shoved cotton into my ears and went "alalalalala" because...again, I'm impatient.

Hello, friend.

I drizzled a little honey on top of this sucker, but I had an epiphany the other night - Honey Butter. Man. That'd be good.



But this - a scone, hot, sweet tea, the lilting, trans-atlantic accents of 1930's movie actors, and the setting sun flooding through a very good bottle of honey. This is good, too.


*In light of the tragedy that's unfolding in Japan and the Pacific, please, if you can, donate to The Red Cross*