Ginger and Date Scones

Scone. How do you pronounce that word? Here, it is generally said to be "skon", unless you are talking about the place itself, in which case it is "Skoon". If you are reading this in North America, you probably think it rhymes with stone. 

No, it doesn't. Stop doing that. 

Scones (especially their pronunciation) have been a bit of a thing for a long time in our family. My grandmother's consistently rose like clouds when she cooked them at home in Australia. Unfortunately, when she tried the exact same recipe in North America, the flour produced hot, buttery batches of rocks - fresh baked disappointment - due to the local flour's refusal to cooperate. But the British delicacy didn't have to be homemade; every time we went on a trip to the beach town of Lorne, we could count on visiting the same tea shop overlooking the ocean.  There my grandmother would carefully scrutinise all the menu choices before choosing the same thing time and time again: a cream tea. I think she was of the jam then cream school, but I won't swear to it.

We made the odd batch of scones at home growing up using the ever reliable Bisquick, but it wasn't until I moved to Scotland that I made them from scratch. Here, so many claim to make the BEST scones that I was a bit wary of trying to make them myself. Eventually I conquered my fear, telling myself  at the end of the day, anything straight out of the oven served smeared with melting butter and generous dollops of jam is going to be good, no matter how incompetent a cook you are.

A few years ago my mum went on a visit to Australia and raved about a particular variety of scone: ginger and date. She feasted on them several times during her stay, and being somewhat of a ginger fanatic, recommended I also try making them. She suggested this on a regular basis for quite some time...

"So, have you tried making ginger and date scones?"

"I miss those scones in Australia...you know, the ginger and date ones? Have you made them?"

"Did you find a good recipe for ginger and date scones yet??"

"Oh...you're baking? Are you making scones? With ginger? And dates?"

Still, I can't say I was ever really tempted to make them until this past week. I was at home, awaiting her and her companion's arrival while looking after a poorly 3-year-old, trying to think of something simple I could make with the ingredients I had on hand. Years ago, my mother and I had walked the West Highland Way together, and she had been particularly delighted by Rose Cottage, a B&B that had greeted us with fresh scones and a pot of tea. I looked to recreate that moment (scones after a trek across the ocean rather than following a 14 mile stroll) and then realised that I had both candied ginger and dates in my possession, so perhaps it was time to try the variety my mother had requested I try so many times. The one ingredient in the recipe I did not possess was buttermilk, but that was easily remedied by adding lemon juice to milk and waiting for the mixture to magically transform. 

The rest was just as simple: dry ingredients and chopped butter into the food processor, blitz, dump into bowl & add buttermilk to bring together, mixing as little as possible, fold in dates and chopped ginger. Put mounds onto greaseproof paper, then sprinkle coarse, demerara sugar on top and bake until nicely browned. Brew tea and wait for mother, trying one for quality control while waiting. 

So yes, mother, I have made them. And yes, they were nice. Thank you.

The link is here, but the recipe is also below:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold, cut into 8 chunks
• 1 cup buttermilk (just under a cup of milk, add a Tbsp of lemon juice, stir, then let sit for 10 minutes)
• 3/4 cup dates, chopped
• 1/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
• 1 tablespoon demerara sugar 

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & salt.
3. With pastry blender cut in the cold butter until mixture looks like fine crumbs (or blitz in a food processor)
4. Stir in buttermilk until dough forms a ball, then stir in dates & ginger.
5. On an ungreased baking sheet & using a 1/3 cup measure, drop dough 1 inch apart, then sprinkle with sugar.
6. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown

Gingerbread Nativity

So I think I'm a convert now to gingerbread.

I used to always use the Joy of Cooking recipe at Christmas for all my cookie cutters, and while it keeps its shape and is ok, it just didn't have the kick of ginger snaps or really much of anything going for it. I voiced this opinion and was told by a super secret person that they had a super secret recipe that I should try before giving up on gingerbread.

That recipe sat in my inbox until this week. To be fair, I got it in January, and I really don't get a hankering for gingerbread until at least Hallowe'en (I have spooky cookie cutters) or usually Christmas season. So I pulled it out, stocked up on molasses and gave it a whirl.

Naturally, it started, as all good recipes do, with lots of butter and sugar.

I wasn't in the mood for hand creaming this, so out came the electric beaters.

I decided this was blended enough for me.

Then in went an egg. It was on the last day of its life according to the box, but I wasn't too concerned.

After another egg was added in the mixture looked a bit curdled, but not so much as to worry me.

In went sticky, sweet, blackstrap molasses. High in iron, doncha know. That's why you can find it in health stores here, but will struggle to find it in supermarkets and most food stores. I also added in "sour" milk. I was supposed to add just a half cup, but I put in a whole cup. At this point I had not realised this. Oh, and some orange zest went in because I've always put it in gingerbread before and it felt strange not to.

Only when it looked like this did I figure it out. Oops. Time to improvise.

I asked myself, what would Robert do. He answered by licking the beaters of sugar and butter. Hmph. And yes, we do have a classy advent candle holder there in the background. It's proper fancy.

So I just decided to put an extra cup of flour extra into the flour, spice and leavening mixture and give it a whirl.

I started to panic a little as it was a very, very sticky dough compared to other rolled cookie doughs I've encountered. But when I looked back at the recipe, it said that even if you actually follow the directions and measure the ingredients correctly it is a fairly sticky dough.

So I said a small prayer and put 3 blobs between sheets of greaseproof paper.

I flattened them down a bit and placed them in the fridge overnight. I hadn't meant for it to be overnight, but life happened.

This morning I took it out and it looked like this. Not a perfect mixture, but if you are just baking for family and friends, who really cares?

A sprinkling of sugar went on before cutting out the cookies. Sparkles!!!

They were admittedly quite difficult to extract from their cutters, but they made it to the cookie sheet looking like this. It's a nativity set I got last year for Christmas - word of my baking hobby has spread.

A mere 8 minutes later I took them out and they had puffed to extreme proportions. I guess Joseph, Mary, and the kings just had too much salt in their diets. Hmmm. Normally I wouldn't mind too much but as the whole point here was they they were supposed to look like shapes that all related to each other I decided to do something extreme.

I cut them AGAIN while they were still warm. I saw them do this on the Great British Bake off and it seemed to work. The good things were I got to have the shapes I wanted as the end result and I got to taste the trimmings. The bad things were that all the cookies lost their lovely crunchy/chewy biting edge and I will now have them instead as a moment on my lips lifetime on my hips.

But I did it anyway. My son helped with the cut-offs.

Because they were amazing. Seriously the best gingerbread cookies I've had. I left the stable as it was, and ended up with this to greet the kids when they came home from school today.

So, without further ado, the super secret recipe...shhhhhhh....

Gingerbread Cookies!
1 Cup white sugar
1 cup butter, softened, of course
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup sour milk (or add 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar to the milk)
4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
5 cups flour

Blend the butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time. Then add other liquid ingredients and mix.

Sift together the flour, rising agents & spices and add gradually to the batter.

This is the only cookie dough that I find really needs a stand mixer or a mixer of some sort, because it gets very stiff with all the flour.

Even for being very stiff, it's still quite a sticky dough right after the mixing. Wrap the dough in wax paper or plastic wrap, in sort of flattened discs, usually 2 or 3, and refrigerate it. The flattened discs are in preparation for rolling out the dough after it's chilled. I usually make the dough the night before and let it chill overnight, but I'm sure an hour or two would do it. The dough also keeps very well, if you make it and only roll out part.

Roll out the dough like you would any other cookie dough or pie crust, but fairly thick - about a 1/4 inch. We always sprinkle the dough with regular white sugar, and go at it with your cookie cutters.

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should puff up quite a bit and should still be a little bendy when you take them out of the oven. It also helps to store them in an airtight container with a piece of bread, so they stay soft.

Ginger Snaps with Crystallised Ginger

Have I mentioned that my mother sent me a whole KILO of crystallized ginger?

Well she did.

In case you didn't know, that is a lot of ginger.  The only other time I've considered having this much ginger in my house was when I was pregnant and could only stomach plain white bread and ginger products.  Oh, first trimester, I miss you not.

But back to my mother.  She sent me a link to a recipe for ginger snaps studded with crystallized ginger so I thought I'd give it a go. I took the idea, that is, but used as the base recipe my Joy of Cooking recipe for ginger snaps that I knew could produce some pretty tasty cookies, having made these autumn beauties in years past.

The weather is perfect for these just now - crisp, cold fall days with whispers of winter in the wind that gush through the gaps of our Victorian tenement's exterior.  My tea consumption has been steadily climbing, much to the delight of the fellow who runs Anteaques who chirped "see you soon!" as I departed today with my two large bags of tea.  And these cookies are perfect with tea...or coffee...or, if you want to be North American, spiced apple cider. Anyone in Shaker remember that house on Scottsdale that would serve up hot cider and ginger snaps on Halloween every year?  Even fear of concealed razor blades couldn't keep us from enjoying their offerings.

So in one bowl went flour, lots of ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

And in another bowl went butter and sugar.  As you'll know, the other day I made pumpkin snickerdoodles. You didn't know that? What do you mean you don't check my cooking blog every day?!!!?!

Hmph

Well, anyway, I did, and I rolled them in a spicy sugar mix.  I had a lot of it left over and I hate wasting anything in the kitchen, so I just put the leftover sugar mix in these with plain caster sugar too.  I made sure to give myself a smug pat on the head, too.

I mixed it together...

Then put in eggs and uh...well, the recipe said molasses OR dark OR golden syrup, so I used the remains of some treacle I had and some golden syrup.  Some lemon juice and zest went in too.

I put my sous-chef to work mixing it together

Then I took some of the flour mix and put it in with the ginger chunks to stop it all from sticking when I pulverized it.

It seemed to work.

Catherine did a good job mixing everything in the big bowl.  She's always liked stirring things...

So I put in the flour mix too and asked her to keep mixing it up.

Getting there...

Looking good.  you can see the occasional stud of ginger if you look closely.

Then we rolled up balls and put them on baking trays.  Don't worry, I made sure Catherine washed her hands and did not pick her nose until after she left the kitchen.  I didn't realize until the first batch came out that I was supposed to press them down a bit before they went in.  Oops.  They still tasted good, even if they were a bit lumpy in appearance.

I like them chewy, so I pull mine out promptly after 10 minutes.  Michael thought they weren't done yet when he glanced at them, but he was wrong.

Hooray for quality control.

And for sunny baking days.

All happy together to go to St Columba's...minus a few samples.

Ginger Snaps - adapted from Joy of Cooking

3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
.25 tsp ground cloves
.25 tsp salt
12 tbsp butter
1 2/3 c sugar
2 large eggs 
1/2 c dark molasses (or a general mix of treacle and golden sryup)
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp grated lemon zest

good sized handful of crystallised ginger

Directions

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices.  

Place about a half cup of flour mix in processor with the crystallised ginger and pulse until you have small pieces.  Alternatively, chop by hand and add back to flour mix.

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs, molasses (or golden syrup & treacle mix), lemon juice, and lemon zest and mix until well combined.  Add flour mix and stir until well combined.

Pinch off generous tablespoons of the mix and roll into even balls.  Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets and press down lightly to flatten.

bake 10 to 13 minutes at 350 (underbake slightly for chewy cookies or longer for crispy snaps)

makes 6 to 6.5 dozen cookies

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Well, today was a big day, people.  My baking got me invited to a party.  This cooking is opening doors, my friends.  Party doors with pumpkins on them.

Because it was a pumpkin tasting party!

I was under strict instructions only to make something if I wanted to.

Well, of course I wanted to.  I mean, who needs another excuse to cook pumpkin in October?  Not me, certainly.

I opted for pumpkin cheesecake, a dessert I now prefer over pumpkin pie.

So I got the essentials.  Out of frame is a huge bag of candied ginger that my mom sent with the request that it feature in a blog post.  Don't worry, you'll see it later on.

First I made the base - ginger nuts/snaps were pulverised in the food processor.

Then in went some pecans and crystallized ginger.  Sugar was supposed to go in too, oops.

Just a few pulses so there would still be lumps of it...

And then in went some melted butter.

I lightly pressed it into the tin.  My recipe then said to bake it, but I ignored the recipe and just set the assembled base aside.

On to the cheesecake filling.  I whipped up some cream cheese and added brown sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

I never worry about a few specks of brown sugar showing up, as they'll just melt into nice sugary syrup within.

And in went some eggs too

Over the years, it has been tricky getting consistent supplies of this baby.  When I first moved here pureed pumpkins myself, which is a big, watery hassle (but admittedly turned out to be very tasty).  Then I found suppliers of the canned variety in out of the way places.  Then Libby's had a bad couple years of harvests and they actually limited the exports of this stuff, making it truly prized amongst us expats.

I'm happy to report it is a plentiful year for pumpkin, with Libby's now gracing multiple supermarket shelves and jack-o-lantern pumpkins a'plenty on the shelves too.

In goes the orange stuff

And into the tin it goes.

I stuck it in a water bath just to make sure it stayed smooth.  Just as well, as I forgot to turn the fan off on my oven so I cooked it at a higher heat than I intended.  And thankfully I have a habit of checking stuff when it is 3/4 of the way through what the directions indicate is the correct length of baking time.

So it came out looking like this.  It went into the fridge for a day and a half.

Then I added some whipped cream with a bit of vanilla, icing sugar, and ginger with a couple pieces of crystallized ginger.

And then I carried down the stairs in a vintage orange tupperware container and dropped it while stupidly trying to put gloves on, managing to smear whipped cream all over my coat in the process. A little voice inside my head had been trying to warn me it was a dumb idea, but who really listens to that voice, anyway?  I don't have a photo of the dented mess (thankfully at least it got on me and not the floor) as I didn't have anything with me that can take photos (my phone is an 8 year old Nokia) but I did still offer it to others and they ate it.  

WAIT, someone else took a photo with a fancy camera after its cosmetic repairs:

Try this recipe, you know you want to.

Pumpkin Cheesecake (adapted from TLC Cooking)

CRUST
1‑1/4	cups gingersnap (ginger nuts in the UK) cookie crumbs
1/3	cup pecans, very finely chopped
	handful of crystallized ginger
1/4	cup butter, melted
FILLING
	24 oz cream cheese
1	cup packed light brown sugar
1	teaspoon cinnamon
1/2	teaspoon ground ginger
1/4	teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 tsp ground cloves
2	eggs
2	egg yolks
1	cup solid-pack pumpkin

PREPARATION:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. For crust, combine cookie crumbs, pecans, sugar and butter in medium bowl; mix well. Press crumb mixture evenly on bottom of ungreased 9-inch springform pan. 
2. Meanwhile for filling, beat cream cheese in bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg; beat until well blended. Beat in eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin.
3. Pour mixture into crust.  Wrap outside of tin in foil to prevent leaks, then place in bain marie (a big tray filled with boiling water - it's easiest to put tray in oven, add tin, then pour boiling water around it)  Bake around 1 hour (start checking after 40 mins) or until edges are set but center is still moist, it should jiggle like jello in the middle. Turn off oven; let cheesecake stand in oven with door ajar 30 minutes. Transfer to wire rack. To prevent cracking, loosen edges of cake from rim of pan with thin metal spatula; cool completely.
4. Cover; refrigerate at least 24 hours or up to 48 hours before serving
5. Whip some double cream and when it forms soft peaks add a spoonful of icing sugar, a sprinkling of ground ginger and a dash of vanilla and stir into cream.  Pipe onto cheesecake just prior to serving.