Cranberry Orange Scones

When we go to the cottage, one or more of the gals always stops at our Local Gourmet Food shop and picks up a frozen pack of these scones. There are so delicious, I just had to go and pick up a pack to have on hand at home. Well, when I saw the price I was determined to duplicate the recipe at home and I'm happy to report that my recipe was voted better then the original.

I'll confess I just whipped up a batch of these last night and I messed up. Didn't put in enough liquid and then too much so we will see how this batch turns out. A necessity of scone consumption (in my opinion) is that they are eaten warm from the oven slathered in butter and jam if desired. The beauty of this recipe is they can be frozen raw, taken out of the freezer the night before you want to bake them and placed in the fridge. I also found out recently that you can freeze your dried cranberrries so it makes it super economical to buy a Club Pack and always have some on hand.

Cranberry Orange Scones

2 cups all purpose flour

½ cup sugar plus more for topping

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ cup cold butter

¾ to 1 cup heavy cream

1 Tbsp orange zest

1 Tbsp orange juice

½ cup cranberries, dried

Preheat oven to 400F. Line cookie tray with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter to bowl and cut into flour with a pastry blender until the pieces of butter are the size of a small pea. Stir in cranberries. And rest of ingredients. Press dough together in the palms of your hands. If it doesn’t hold together, add more heavy cream. DO NOT OVERMIX!

Pour dough onto a lightly floured countertop. Pat dough into desired shape and cut into portions. Melt about 2 Tbsp butter and brush on top of dough. Sprinkle sugar.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly brown.

Can wrap securely in Saran wrap and store in freezer up to 3 months. Defrost before baking. 

Boterkoek (Dutch Butter Cake)

When you need to take a dessert and you have just a few ingredients on hand, Boterkoek is a good choice. It's quick and uses up the Club pack of sliced almonds that you have in the freezer. It's not too sweet and I took a few fresh raspberries and blueberries to complement the plate.

Boterkoek
3/4 cup white sugar
2/3 cup softened unsalted butter
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and extract. Add dry ingredients. Press into greased 8 in cake pan. Top with almonds pressing down lightly. Bake at 350F for 20-25 min. I like mine slightly underbaked. This time I did the full 25 just to make sure it was cooked through.

More Lemon Cards

Here are a few more from Loonies for Lindor...
Love this technique when you just use a lovely patterned paper and separate it slightly...

Penny Black, your images are even cuter then House Mouse (gasp!)...

Another Penny Black image...

I love these Pure Innocence girls from My Favourite Things. They always seem to have one to fit every theme...

Your Next Stamp provided these cute little 'Tini Sayings... I love the sugar rimmed glitter around the cocktail glass.

We even had lemon diecuts on the lemon soaps. It was a great theme. I really enjoyed working with it.

Lemon Cards

Everytime I host a Loonies for Lindor Fundraising Crop, I make a variety of cards as gifts for the participants who are not scrapbookers. It's really fun coming up with cards to fit the theme. This year I did about 10 different cards and I usually make 10 or so of each. I forgot to post them after the Event so here's a look at a few of them....

This one was so easy.. a great way to use up some really pretty patterned paper. I believe the sentiment is from Your Next Stamp...

I love this Flip card die.. another great way to use up patterned paper. The Happy Birthday sentiment was cut on the Silhouette...

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  It uses 2 different sets of Lawn Fawn dies. Perfect for our lemon theme...

Stay tuned for the rest of the lemon cards!

Maya is 12!!!

I can't believe my sweet girl is 12 years old! She has slowed down considerably due to her arthritis from an ACL repair but with lots of meds, she is comfortable and getting around pretty well. We don't walk with our fur sister anymore (she's a little too fast) but we enjoy moseying around the neighbourhood enjoying all the sweet smells of spring.

The Cutest puppy camping at Tobermory

Freshly groomed

A stroll around the neighbourhood

Sunbathing

 

 

Time to rest!

Oven Baked Chicken

I have struggled with finding a tasty way to doctor up boneless, skinless chicken. I finally found a great recipe that is delicious from The Skinnyish Dish. I modified it a bit (mostly because I didn't know what kosher salt was) but I agree with her that the secret is brining the chicken.

I cut down the amount of salt recommended and just used table salt. 1 tsp for 3 breasts. Mix into lukewarm water and put in your chicken. Store in the Fridge for at least an hour.
Take it out and pat it dry.

Then rub in the following mixture of spices or whatever you like to use:

Oven Roasted Chicken
1-1 1/2  Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp seasoning salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp oregano

Mix into a paste and rub onto chicken.
Place on a cookie sheet covered with foil or in a baking dish.
Bake at 450F for 22-25 minutes.
You can broil for 2-3 minutes at the end to brown and crisp if desired.
Let rest for a few minutes and its ready to serve or store in the fridge for a quick high protein snack.

April Swap Card

Still getting caught up after a busy spring, but Keri and I actually exchanged these cards back at the beginning of May. So we are all caught up and I even have my May card ready to go for the end of the month.

Keri did not one but TWO sweet baby cards. I can't remember what line of stamps she used but she coloured them with Prisma pencils and hung them on a clothesline with the most adorable mini clothespins. And now I have one ready for a boy OR a girl...

I used an MFT Cat set that I've used before but I wanted to use a peek a boo die set that I hadn't used before. I actually cut off the doors as I wanted to directly showcase the cats....

I thought about it after I was done and realized I used dog bones as my background paper but I don't think its TOO noticeable. Here are the products that I used....

And there you have it. All caught up. Off to do some yardwork. The Sun is finally shining after days of gloom and rain so it will be nice to get outside for a bit.