Hello, friends; it’s been a while, for reasons many of you that know me know and many of you that don’t know me don’t need to. But when I awoke this morning after days — nay, was it weeks? of not being able to cook for myself and having minimal appetite, lo, something in my my weary soul cried out ‘Uh, t’heck with that …” and wanted to make scones. 

Which, it should be noted, I’ve never done before. I’m not much of a biscuit man, and if you’re gonna make something sweet, I figure, why not make a cake — but something about the hearty idea of a scone, its heft and shape, appealed to me. And I didn’t want any plain old currant-and-excuses scone; i wanted something specific, and that meant trying to figure out variations for a recipe I’d never tackled before. So, what did we wind up with? 

TURKEY-BACON/CHEDDAR/JALAPENO SCONES (adapted from Mark Bittman) 

If you cook — novice or advanced kitchen denizen — I can’t recommend Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything enough. it is even a $4.99 iPhone/iPad app — which is a crazy-awesome investment, considering that the book (while more browsable and butter-smear-safe than any app) is $35.)

1 Cup Cake Flour

1 Cup Regular Flour

2 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal (NOTE: Bittman just calls for 2 C Cake Flour, but I wanted something more substantial while still flaky — hence these modifications)

4 Tsp Baking Powder

1 scant Tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Sugar (Counter-Intuitive, but, Trust me.) 

5 Tbsp Cold Butter

2 Eggs (plus, part of one for wash —or if you have egg white in your fridge, use that for wash and don’t waste 2/3 of an egg)

3/4 Cup Cream

3 Oz Sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

4 Slices Turkey Bacon Thick, not thin — think Trader Joe’s (which has the advantage of being pre-cooked, as well)  not hyper-processed big-brand) lightly browned with …

Small-diced Jalapeno to taste. 

1) Preheat Oven to 450 degrees; toss bacon and jalapenos in small skillet on low heat, tossing sporadically. 

2) Combine dry ingredients in bowl of food processor, pulse once or twice. Cut butter into five pieces, add to bowl, pulse until thoroughly blended. 

3) Beat 2 eggs and cream in large bowl; add flour-butter mix and turn with rubber spatula until just mixed. Fold in cheese, bacon and jalapenos. Turn dough onto floured board, knead ten times while forming into flat disc approx. 1.5-2 in thick; add flour as necessary if things stick. (I used a little extra cake flour that was around; I can’t tell you if using the regular for forming purposes would make that much of a difference.) Cut into 8 equal wedges with large, sharp knife. (I find, for stuff like this, bisecting then quartering then halving the quarters — as opposed to doing around like cutting a cake — makes for more even results.) 

4) Place cut scones on ungreased baking sheet Brush with egg white/ an egg beaten with 1 tsp water. (Or melted butter. Or, uh, anything that sounds good — I was imagining a little egg white-green Tabasco wash, which I may try next time.)

5) Bake for approx. 15 minutes, or until golden brown; cool on rack. Eat while warm. And I will so make these again.

Next time: EL TORTE DEL DIABLO!