Thursday, November 11, 2010

Cheddar Apple Scones


If we're talking literally here, I am a Jersey girl. I was born in Jersey and raised in Jersey. But my heart, and often my tastebuds, belong to New England. I love the spicy taste of ginger ice cream which is so hard to find outside of New England. I made pilgrimages to Herrell's. I was fed bites from my father's Jordan's blueberry muffins (although not often, my father's pretty stingy with those muffins). I would give almost anything for the recipe to Ma Glockner's Sticky Buns (well, not anything, but if you have the recipe, contact me immediately. I will send cookies. Or Sticky Buns). And although I've never really done it myself, I get the old New England tradition of cheddar cheese on apple pie. My grandmother loved it.

And yes, I will sadly acknowledge that there are many people who are now living in New England who don't know about Jordan's, or Ma Glockner's, or think the cheddar/apple pie thing is hogwash, but they're probably the same people who don't know what Dirty Water is, and can't tell you where they were in 1986 when their hearts broke (a farm house in Antietam), or where they were 18 years later when Foulke threw to first to end an 86 year drought (Cleveland Circle). And I'll tell you this. I'm not sharing my cheddar cheese and apple scones with them. Not if they get to live up there while I'm down here in exile.

CHEDDAR APPLE SCONES
adapted from SmittenKitchen

Ingredients:
2 apples (I used MacIntosh, but I'd love to try Northern Spies)
1 1/2 C flour (plus at least 1/4 C for the board, this is a seriously sticky dough)
1/4 C sugar
1/2 T baking powder (I know, awkward to measure)
6 T cold butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 t salt (omit this if you use salted butter)
3/4 C cheddar
1/4 C heavy cream
1 egg

Directions:
Peel and core the apples and cut them into 16 pieces each. Seriously. Have fun counting with that. Then put them on a lined baking sheet (I used my silpat, you could use parchment) and bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Allow them time to cool.

In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter, apples, cheese, cream and egg. Mix on low to combine. Then sift together the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Add to the mixer slowly, in batches. Once combine, remove dough from the mixer to a well floured surface.

Gently roll or pat your dough into a 6 inch circle. I just patted mine, no need to dirty the rolling pin. Then cut your dough into 6 equal wedges. It will now be a very delicate operation getting those scones off your counter, use a spatula if you need to, and transfer the scones to a baking sheet lined with a silpat mat or parchment paper.

Bake for 20-30 minutes (come on, you know my oven is running hot these days) until golden and firm. If you can, cool them on a rack before eating.

SmittenKitchen strongly recommends not saving them for more than 2 days. So I just froze my whole batch. They did take about 30 minutes from frozen, but if they were fresh I'd certainly want to check before that.

3 comments:

mom said...

I hope to make these this weekend to take care of part of the apple explosion. What person in his (gender specific) right mind buys 43 pounds of apples????? I will report back.
PS. Your father took umbrage at the Jordan's lack of sharing. He says he would ALWAYS share any part of his muffin that you wanted.

JMLC/Stellacarolyn said...

I made these today but rather than using the mixer I used the cuisinart. They were delicious! I also made four cheese and rosemary scones which were also delicious. Mmmmm. Scones.

mom said...

I, too, made these this weekend. They were truly delicious! The dough was less of a pain in the neck than I thought it would be; I am not a fan of soft dough (perhaps because I am lazy!). Also because I am lazy I did not drag out the silpat (which my darling daughter gave me) and I used tin foil (yeah, I still call it that) instead and believe me- IT DOES NOT WORK so well.It took me a half an hour to peel off those little apple pieces encrusted on the foil. Now that's a mistake I will not make again. I did not think my oven ran hot, but at 25 minutes the scones were a bit browner than I might consider ideal. Of course, I did not check them at 20 minutes as any normal person might (I was busy or lazy). Just warning you. Back to the bottom line- YUM. YUM. YUM.
P.S. I used half and half instead of heavy cream because that is what needed to be used in the frig.

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