Scones for Me, Scones for You!

My group of coworkers in the office has a routine of bringing in breakfast once a week.  Responsibility of providing the food rotates among team members.  Recently it fell to me.  My coworkers are not very adventurous eaters. Normal provisions are either breakfast tacos or bagels.  I must be the only person in San Antonio that gets tired of breakfast tacos.  Most of my culinary tastes are not shared with my coworkers, so I have to be careful of what I decide to bring in. 

Scones seemed a good midway point.  They are really close to biscuits, so it wasn't a big stretch for most people.  The recipe I used came from Professional Baking by Wayne Glissen, my pastry textbook. We made half a batch of plain scones, a quarter batch of raisin scones, and a quarter batch of cranberry scones.

The tricks to making great biscuits also are the ones to make great scones. In particular, there are two main tips.  First, don't overwork the dough.  Too much kneading will make biscuits hard like hockey pucks.  I could tell that our set of raisin scones were kneaded a little too much. They were much flatter than the other ones and not as flaky.

Next, BUTTER.  Butter is actually important in quick breads like biscuits and scones.  The steam generated from the butter melting is a major portion of the leavening activity.  When you mix the butter in to the flour, leave it in small pieces about pea size.  This will make sure you have little pockets of buttery goodness and aromatic steam when you break open a piece.  For these scones, we used both Crisco and butter. 

We used 2"-3" square cookie cutters to cut our dough. It made the scones small enough for people not to feel guilty for having one of each.  And then seconds.  The egg wash we used to create the shiny crust on top was made from eggs, milk, and a touch of granulated sugar.  On some of the plain ones we added some granulated sugar as well.

They definitely needed something to help wash them down, which could have been fixed by using all butter. They did not contain a lot of sugar, so people with a sweet tooth added honey or jam.  Everyone else just swigged their morning coffee.

Overall, the scones got rave reviews. I bet they will be talking about these for quite some time.

Keys to My Heart

Again, I have a weird urge to surround myself with hearts for Valentine's Day.  Specifically, I wanted to have a crafty thing to have on my desk at the office and make me smile.  This is a free pattern found on Rainbow Gallery's free pattern list.  It is an Erica Michaels design from 2002, but I really liked the design.

It calls for some specific thread, so I decided to check out a local cross stitch store to see if they had the alternative brands of floss.  When I showed the pattern with the materials list to the ladies there, they commented, "Wow! That's such an old pattern!"  Way to criticize your customer's choices. They did tell me that the listed threads are now out of production.  Either way, I think I will be buying thread online now, thankyouverymuch.

It's stitched on 18 count Linen in Light Oatmeal. I picked out similar colors from normal DMC floss.  This was the first time I put any embellishments on a piece.  The charm was actually the most difficult thing to find.  It took me about 9 hours to complete.  Stitched size is 2 1/2" x 4" and it is in a 5" x 7" frame with a gold 4"x6" oval matte.

Fun with Foam

I've been in and out of craft stores over the holidays and in the recent weeks.  I have seen a lot of little foam projects made by Creatology.  They're mostly holiday themed and geared to children ages 6 and older.  There are a lot of ornaments and picture frames as well as larger models. I've been really wanting to do stuff for Valentine's Day in the past couple weeks, so I picked up one of the larger kits to play with.  I got this particular kit at Michael's Craft Store, but I have seen foam kits even at places like Target.

I picked a Valentine's Day Bird's Tree House.  If a six year old was doing this project, I really don't think it would end up like the picture on the box at all.  Some of the pieces were made to be interlocking, but they didn't fit together well.  I did require assistance to keep some pieces in place while the glue dried.  The instructions call for Elmer's glue, but I ended up switching to Krazy Glue with the brush applicator about halfway through.  This kit came with stick-on glitter accents which added most of the character of the house.  Some of the stickers were really tiny and hard to wield, especially the little white dots on the front of the house.

Overall, I still think it's really cute. The model was a bit of a pain in the butt, so I probably won't be doing another one.  The smaller kits could be used to make little holiday gifts for classmates or coworkers.   At seven dollars for the kit, it was definitely cheap entertainment. Seeing my guy put sparkly hearts on the foam was well worth it.  My excuse was that it was training for when he has a daughter, but I think my bribe was what finally got him to help.

Youngster Ava

Next project in my current cross stitch craze comes from the Smirk Attitudes A to Z book.  I picked up the book because the designs reminded me of several of the women in my life.  They may end up as presents somewhere down the line if the obsession keeps up. Another bonus, the patterns are not very complicated, which is something I needed after the previous project. It made this one really quick to complete.  

I adapted the "Youngster" pattern for a birthday gift for my neice.  It was completed on 18 count white aida cloth. I replaced the font and text at the bottom for her name.  I also swapped specified thread colors for similar ones available in my stash.  I matted it in a 5x7 black frame.  The matte is printed paper from a packet of 5" x 7" scrapbooking papers in Valentine's prints found in the Target dollar bin.  Side note: I do love that dollar bin.

The next project will be lids for canned goodies to use as gifts upcoming holidays for friends & family.  I ran the idea by my man and he almost immediately started rifling through our cookbooks for canning recipes.  Reason #394 why he's a keeper.

Rose of Sharon

I come from a long line of crafty women.  Not only in wily ways, but in creative with many different kinds of sewing.  My mom currently quilts, but has tatted, knitted, crochets, embroidered, and sewn more Halloween costumes than I care to mention.  My twin currently quilts, but has knitted and crocheted.  She now has a blog about her current feats of creativity and dexterity.

My personal preference has been mostly cross stitch, a type of needle work. Recently I've gotten into clay painting and acrylic painting at the retail shops around town though I still feel at home with cross stitch.  In cleaning out my closets over New Year's, I found this stuck in the bottom of a box I haven't opened in years.  I figured it was about damn time to finish the damn thing.

This project comprised several firsts for me:  first of this size, first on linen, first of this complexity, first on 32 count fabric. It took me over ten years to finish it!  The pattern is called "Rose of Sharon" from Mirabilia. It is stitched on 32 ct natural linen (2 over 2). Stitched area size is 13"w x 24"h. I am working on getting the right matte and frame for it.  Full size will end up being 20"w x 30"h.  I know there are some errors in it, so right now I can only look at it from ten feet away.  At that distance, the colors really blend together and give it a lot of dimension.

Finishing it after so long has filled me with a sense of accomplishment that I have not felt for a long time.  The last I can remember was when I finished a half marathon with my sister in 2008.  It also has the bonus effect of having something physical to show for my effort.

Neener-neener-neener!

With that surge of pride, I have turned almost obsessive about the next project and the next. There will definitely be more to come!