Welcome and Pecan Scones

Hi! I have decided that I cook and bake enough to want to warrant snapping a few shots and posting them here...we'll see how long the experiment lasts!

This week, I've been particularly excited to start cooking from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours, which is of course famous in the blogosphere but which I just got in the mail...yay! The first recipe I made was the Corniest Corn Muffins, which I'll post about later, but today I made her Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits...I iced them and called them scones, and my housemates never knew the difference. ;) Very delicious! I love making scones because they're super easy but feel very special, and these definitely did not disappoint.

Pecan Scones (slightly adapted from Dorie's recipe)

Makes 12

2 c all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 c packed brown sugar

5 T cold unsalted butter, cut into lots of small pieces

1/2 c sour cream
1/4 c milk

2/3 c pecans

confectioner's sugar
half-and-half

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coarsely chop the pecans and then toast them over medium heat in a small saucepan. Set aside to cool.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and soda. Whisk in the brown sugar. Drop in the butter and cut in with a pastry cutter (or your fingers).

3. Stir together the sour cream and milk and pour in. Mix together with a fork and then knead briefly to bring the dough together. Knead in the pecans. Scoop up spoonfuls of the dough and pat into 12 rounds. Place on a cookie sheet lined with tinfoil. Bake about 12-15 minutes until nicely browned on the bottom.

4. Make a quick icing--mix together confectioner's sugar and half-and-half until you get a thick but drizzle-able consistency. Drizzle over the scones and eat them warm.