Irish Scones & A GIVEAWAY!

With many of us preparing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day next week, I thought it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite recipes for Irish Scones. This one is from Darina Allen. Darina is the founder of internationally known Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland.

Several years ago Ms. Allen recognized that the Irish culinary tradition was slipping away, actually in danger of being lost and she set out to research and record the history of food in Ireland. This recipe is from her book

"The Complete Book of Irish Country Cooking ~ Traditional and Wholesome Recipes from Ireland".

To learn more about Darina Allen and her books you can click Darina Allen's Amazon page to see or order her books.

~Fresh and warm from the oven, split and slathered~

The recipe yields a generous 18 to 20 scones (I always cut the recipe in half or thirds.) Darina writes that her mother would make a full batch of the scone dough, and cut it into squares or diamonds for their family of nine. Her mother would also sometimes serve them as after school snacks for her children and there was rarely a crumb left.

This recipe makes the tallest and most flaky scones I have ever tasted, whether it is due to the cutter I use, or Darina's recipe I don't know. I use the largest cutter from this set. (I'm giving a set of these cutters away ~ you can get the details below.)

See how tall and flaky they are? So buttery and tender, too.

Darina suggest serving them with jam or preserves and a dollop of whipped cream on top.

Who am I to argue with her suggestion? :D

She also suggests brushing them with an egg wash and sprinkling with granulated sugar before baking in a very hot oven. This helps them brown up so nicely and adds a slightly crunchy texture which I love.

I do believe they are my favorite scones, and very, very good !

If you would like a copy of Darina's recipe you can find it HERE on my recipe blog.

Now, for the GIVEAWAY!

I highly recommend these sturdy cutters ~ they work really well for cutting perfect shapes for cookies, biscuits, scones, puff pastry, etc.

(They are dishwasher safe.)

If you would like a chance to win a set of the~ RSVP 4 Square Rippled Biscuit Cookie Cutters (Stainless Steel) (click the link to learn more)

The rules to enter for a chance to win are simple:

You must:

1.) Be a follower in my side column

2.) Leave a comment on this post*

3.) One entry per household, please

* If you're not a follower, sign up in the side column, above

Note:

This time, there are no restrictions as to location ~

I'll send the cutters to virtually anywhere in the world!

Good Luck to all who enter!

The winner will be selected randomly and will be announced next Friday,

March 19th.

Please visit Michael's blog "Designs By Gollum" to see everyone who is participating in FOODIE FRIDAY this week. Thank you for hosting us Michael!!

Cinnamon Scones with Raspberry Butter

You probably have your favorite recipe for scones, so I'll just provide a link to the recipe I used for these. It's a basic scone recipe with ground cinnamon and a little pure vanilla extract added to the dough for a variation.

But the real star here is the Raspberry Butter.

I use my recipe for BETTER BUTTER here, but regular softened butter or margarine can be used. You can make it as sweet or not, whatever you prefer.

I like mine blended with just some Raspberry Jam or Preserves, and if you have some fresh raspberries on hand you can mash them and add them to the mix, then blend well with a fork, food processor or hand mixer.

Add honey, maple syrup, confectioner's sugar or light Karo syrup to taste if you like a sweeter spread.

This recipe is very similar to the one I used for the mini-scones.

My changes to the recipe: I substituted Half & Half or heavy cream for the milk, then patted the dough out on a lightly floured board and cut them with scalloped heart-shaped biscuit cutters.

I used two alternate topping methods this time, but here is the topping I usually add to my cinnamon scones before baking:

Topping:

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Combine sugar and cinnamon. Brush scones with melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Transfer scones to cookie sheet and bake as directed.

But this time I brushed all of the scone tops with cream, sprinkled some with large grained "Sparkling" sugar, and left the others plain, then baked.

While still quite warm I drizzled tinted sugar-cream icing* on the ones I had left plain.

*Sugar-Cream Icing ~

Confectioners Sugar and Milk or Cream

Add just enough milk or cream to confectioners sugar to achieve a thick consistency, just loose enough to drizzle from a spoon or fork.

Tip: Start with a little liquid, you can always add more.

Tint mixture with food color if desired. Blend well and apply to warm scones.

There are so many fine scone recipes available, both sweet and savory. Two others I really like are from The Barefoot Contessa/Ina Garten, and the Silver Palate Cookbooks.

A question...

Do you have a favorite scone recipe, or favorite scone flavors? I'd love to learn about yours. As always, thank you for your comments!