Three Ingredient Scones

While I'm not a fantastic cook, I'm an even worse baker.  I don't know if it's lack of patience or not enough attention to detail, but I have never mastered the art. So when I saw this recipe for three-ingredient scones–from a nutritionist who claims she's also never had success with making them–I thought it was worth a try. At first they were a little bland on flavor, so I added a little fresh-squeezed juice, and diced crystallized ginger and it added just a hint of zing. I was quite pleased with how these came out, and hope you enjoy! 

Three-Ingredient Scones

Ingredients

• 3 cups Self-rising Flour
• 300 ml/10 oz Heavy Cream
• 300 ml/10 oz Plain or flavored Sparkling Water/Seltzer

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 430° F/220° C
2. Sift flour into a large bowl
3. In a separate bowl, add heavy cream, then add the seltzer, and give a very gentle stir with a table knife (to reduce air loss from the seltzer)
4. Make a well in the flour, then gently add liquids to the flour
5. Lightly stir with table knife around the bowl and through the middle a few time until combined, but still slightly damp
6. Prepare pan/sheet with parchment paper
7. Flour your work surface, and lightly empty dough onto flour (using knife to help if needed)
8. Flour the top of the dough, and your hands liberally
9. Help the dough come together by pulling the sides gently in, folding over, and repeat a couple times until it has a rustic pillow-like shape
10. Create your scones using a floured cookie cutters or knife. Be sure to flour the tool between cuts.
11. Put scones very close together on pan/sheet to encourage rising
12. Use a pastry brush to lightly brush milk over the top of each scone
13. Bake 15-20 minutes, until golden on top, and hollow sounding when tapped, then enjoy! 

If you would like to make Lemon Ginger Scones as I did:

• Use lemon seltzer/sparkling water, or ginger ale
• Add an extra 2 TBSP flour in step 2
• Add 1/4 cup lemon juice to the cream, before the seltzer, in step 4
• Finely dice a few pieces of candied ginger and add at beginning of step 5

Many thanks to Charity at Easy Healthy Tasty for the inspiration, and you can watch her makes these scones here.

Ten Vermont Cheeses Worth Tasting

Along time ago, I promised to make a foodie friend a list of my favorite Vermont cheeses. There are certainly many more, but here are my top nine--with the addition of a tenth from a fellow VT cheese-lover.. Additional Vermont foods that pair well are also listed. Enjoy!

Ten Vermont Cheeses Worth Tasting 

Cabot Creamery Co-operative: Alpine Cheddar
Cabot cheddar is every day cheese to Vermonters, but this kicks it up a notch with a drier, nuttier flavor I find addictive. Yummy paired with
Vermont Smoke & Cure Summer Sausage.


Twig Farm: Goat Tomme
This was the first tomme I ever tried, and still my favorite years later. Also, I think the cheesemaker's wife practicing/teaching violin makes for happy goats. To come full circle...we often put Twig Farm cheese in out visiting artists' green room.


Maplebrook Farm: Hand Dipped Ricotta
I've been on a real ricotta binge lately, and the rich, fresh flavor of this versatile cheese just overshadows the other ricottas in the dairy aisle.


Blue Ledge Farm: Maple Chevre
You knew something maple had to make it to the list. It was not uncommon for me to have a package of Maple Chevre and Whitney's Castleton Crackers' Middlebury Maple (now Salted Maple) crackers in my office at all times.


Jasper Hill Farm: Bayley Hazen Blue
I bought this yummy blue to make homemade blue cheese dressing. It's so creamy, it covered the fact that I totally botched the recipe.


Plymouth Artisan Cheese: Garlic Peppercorn
I'm not usually partial to flavored cheddar cheese, but this makes a killer companion to a LaPlatte River Angus Farm burger.


Grafton Village Cheese Company: Shepsog
I first tasted this earthy sheep/cow cheese on a charcuterie platter at a post-concert reception in a barn in southern Vermont. Quite fitting!

Vermont Creamery: Herb Chevre
Spread this on grilled O Bread Bakery French Batard and add the slightest drizzle of Champlain Valley Apiaries Honey or Sidehill Farm's Damson Plum Jam.


Taylor Farm Cheese: Leyden Gouda
I fell in love with Leyden—with its cumin and/or caraway seed flavor—in the Netherlands. Taylor Farms doesn’t make it often, but their Maple-smoked Farmstead Gouda is another yummy choice if the Leyden isn’t available. And these Goudas pair nicely with
Jan's Farmhouse Crisps.


And lastly a recommendation from a friend: 

Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company: Lillé (Coulomierres)

Handmade in small batches, their Coulommiers-style cheese--thicker ancestor to Brie--has a northern French origin as does the name itself, Lillé.

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Walnut Serving Board and picture by J.K. Adams Co. in Dorset, VT