Fresh Cranberry Orange Scones

If food was rated on the man scale, these scones would get a crumb-dusted smile with a sticky fingered thumbs up. Not only did "A" scarf down two of these for breakfast, he ever so politely asked me if he could eat just one more after our bike ride yesterday. Then this morning? He sneaked in another one before I even had a chance to scrub the sleep off my eyes.

I think there might have even been a request for this to be a weekly thing. Or for me to drop everything and open a bakery just for him ASAP. The details are a little melted as never has a simple breakfast been so well received by "A." My mind was too in awe.

As it tis the season of all things red, fat filled and sugar laden, cranberry baked something was just calling my name this weekend. Sure, there are some dried cranberries in the pantry. Great, there might be some canned pumpkin shoved in the back. But the farm fresh goodness is where it's at.

"A" has been collecting cranberries from all the farmers across the land so saying there was a surplus is not a stretch. Check - cranberries all accounted for. Yet something was missing, I wanted more. MORE I tell you! 

Good thing I found a random (but really, where did it come from?) orange in my purse. Totally normal right? I hope it wasn't tainted and stuck into my satchel as a cruel joke. Even if this is so, joke is on you sir as I won and these scones are delicious.

You don't want to know about poisoned oranges and hoarded cranberries though. You want to make these, right? It's super easy if you have a food processor and, I would assume, a cinch if you just had a pasty cutter. Either way, the goal is to cut up the chilled butter so it's well distributed in the flour mixture but some small pieces of butter should exist.

After that it's the standard one two punch of combining the wet ingredients with the dry.

Before you know it, you'll be sconed.

Fresh Cranberry Orange Scones

Adapted from Slash of Something

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling on tops of scones
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest
• 6 tablespoons chilled goat butter, cut into small cubes
• 8 oz. fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
• 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 scant cup whole goat milk, plus more for brushing on tops of scones
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In the large bowl of a food processor, place the dry ingredients and orange zest, and pulse to combine. Add the goat butter butter, and pulse 10 or so times to combine. There should still be small pieces of butter. Transfer flour mixture to a large mixing bowl. Fold cranberries into mixture.
2. In a large measuring cup, place goat milk, egg, orange juice and vanilla. Mix well, then pour into flour mixture. Using a fork, fold (do not stir) the wet mixture into the dry mixture while gradually turning the bowl. When dough begins to come together, gently kneed dough into a ball shape.
3. Transfer dough ball to floured board, and gently pat it into a 6- or 7-inch circle. Use a pastry scraper or large chef’s knife to cut it into 8 triangles.
4. Place the scones on a parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Brush tops with cream, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turning pan halfway through. Scones are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cranberry Marzipan BonBon's

I think a better name for these would be "Most Addictive German Candies EVER" (it's what I have so eloquently called them for the past year).  I realize that this is not the most politically correct way to describe a dessert, but oh boy oh boy, I can't stop eating these once I've started.  A few nights ago, I gave a plant of cookies away and the guy said "these are so flavorful, you almost need a tall glass of milk to go with them!"  In my little world, that's a pretty good compliment!


I going to make a wild assumption and guess that you don't know Bjoern.  Well, other than my parents and friends from Michigan, most of you don't know of his glory.  Bjoern and I met within the first few weeks of my senior year at U of M; he was a Fulbright scholar trucked over from Germany to study naval architecture and marine engineering.  Needless to say we hit it off very quickly and he instantly became one of my dearest friends (well, at least my dearest German friend, and this is a larger category than one might think!)  For Christmas last year, he gave me a tin full of these bonbons and I have been addicted ever since.  This was a decently sized tin, capable of holding at least 20 or so treats and I actually had to hide them from myself.  I put them atop my armoire, made them extremely difficult to get to and they still disappeared in less than 5 days.  The ghost of Christmas weight gain was once again rearing her ugly head.

As you can imagine, I have been begging Bjoern for this recipe ever since then.  He just sent it to me.  JUST.  His excuse was that the recipe was in German (he translated it for me) and all the measurements were metric.  I could have worked with that; I would have MADE it work.  Last week he sent me a translated copy of the recipe, still in metric but I weigh everything anyways, and I got to baking that night.  Even now I have to to tell myself "No, these cookies are for other people.  Not for you to eat.  Think of all the joy you'll bring people!"  Then I promptly eat one more.

Red Wine Cranberry Sauce

Last night was the first annual Friendsgiving, which is, in my opinion, the greatest holiday of all time.  If you haven't yet heard of Friendgiving (for shame!), I will tell you.  It is a holiday that celebrates friendship and Thanksgiving; a feast of Thanksgiving fare with friends, plus lots and lots of wine.  No seriously, lots of wine starting at 2pm and ending well after the desserts of done.

For the feast, I as assigned to bring a pumpkin cheesecake and green beans… but being who I am I also brought cranberry sauce, pumpkin chocolate fudge and homemade whipped cream.   But you know what?  I don't think anyone was complaining, and if they were, I didn't really care because more food equals more material for my blog.

If this is any indication of how much food I ate, I had to wear a high waisted skirt as to accommodate my Thanksgiving belly.  Julie brined a whole turkey (which I tried a little bit of!), Rachel made mashed potatoes and rolls, Gabe and Christine made cranberry relish and the boys brought a lot of tree previously mentioned wine.  After we were all done eating until we couldn't get up (really, we had to crawl out of our chairs), we played some makeshift charades using "Apples to Apples."  Confused?  We would use the 'red' cards and act out what was on them.  Some one were easy to guess like "diamond"… but it's a little more difficult to act out "Meg Ryan."

Next came dessert… oh boy.  There were three types of pie and that doesn't count the fudge.  Coconut cream pie from Dahlia Bakery, my pumpkin cheesecake and an apple pie by Brandon.  I thought I wouldn't be able to eat for days, imagine my surprise when I woke up hungry this morning.

But the cranberries.  I don't even like cranberries and I loved this sauce.  I knew, generally, how to make cranberry sauce; cranberries + sugar + water.  Simple enough, but I wanted to shake it up a bit.  I thought, why not replace the water with wine?  There's citrus zest in mulled wine, why not add it into the sauce?  Obviously to balance out the sweetness of the cranberries, I had to throw in some sugar (but not too much).  It really seemed to be a hit!  Even the sauce snobs on the groups loved it and Julie asked if she could keep the leftovers!  I don't know about you, but that's the highest compliment I can get!

I'm really going to rush and try and get all my "Thanksgiving" themed recipes up quickly so you might get some inspiration for your own Thanks(or Friends)giving feast!

Red Wine Cranberry Sauce


Ingredients:

• 1 ⅓ cup sugar
• 1 ½ cup dry red wine
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
• 24 ounces package cranberries
• Zest of one lemon

Directions:

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, wine and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the wine has reduced slightly, about 4 minutes.
2. Add the cranberries and the zest. Simmer until the cranberries soften and the sauce thickens, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the heat; remove and discard the cinnamon. Set aside to cool for at least several minutes and up to several hours. Serve warm. (Do not refrigerate; the flavor is muted by the cold.)