Let It Scone, Let It Scone, Let It Scone!

(All images by Ms. TheVeganAsana Jr.2)

It’s time for another holiday festival of scone making. This is weekend #2 of making these little delicious pastries and there may be one more to go (we’ll see). Scones are delicious, easy, and last well, making good gift treats for friends, family, and coworkers.

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My baking supervisor, Charlie

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T turbinado sugar (plus more for board)
1/4 C vegan margarine (soften if needed)
2/3-3/4 C soy milk

Add ons:
1/2 C raisins and 3 T cinnamon
1/2 C dried cranberries, 2 T orange zest, 1/2 orange juiced
1/2 C chocolate chips
½ C chopped almonds and 2 t of vanilla extract

Process
Mix dry ingredients.  Use a pastry cutter to cut in margarine until it forms crumbles in the flour.  Add flavorings and stir.  Add soy milk bit by bit until dough forms into a ball.  I use a stand mixer for this with a dough hook.

Cover a cutting board with a thin layer of turbinado sugar. Divide ball into 4-6 even pieces, place on  your sugared board, flatten to about 1/3 inch thick and sprinkle liberally with sugar.

Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut into pie shaped slices.  Bake at 400* until slightly browned on the top.  This will take around 20 minutes.

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Hurricane Sandy Cookies!

In anticipation of being stuck in the house last weekend, I naturally needed to stock up on carbohydrates. We had already done our regular weekly grocery run (though we were only able to score 1 of our normal 3 loaves of bread due to the French toast folks). But, I hadn’t picked up anything extra for baking. So, on the way home from work on Sunday, I made a quick stop at Riteaid for some Sinutab and got a big Lindt 80% chocolate bar, and a bag of raw almonds. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew this could be worked into something with what I had in the pantry.

Later that day, when it was time to start baking, I checked out the pantry and found flour, sugar, oatmeal, peanut butter. Hmmm… Time for google! I checked out a bunch of recipes and gradually settled on this one, with some modifications (below).

They came out so yummy that they were completely gone by Wednesday morning. I’ll make these again, for sure!

Hurricane Sandy Cookies

  • 1/3 cup natural peanut butter
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 cup raw sugar
  • 1/3 cup soymilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup rolled oats (reqular or quick, but not instant)
  • 1/2 cup non-dairy chocolate chips or chocolate bar broken into small pieces
  • 1/2 cup chopped almonds

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F and prepare your baking sheets.
  2. Whisk together first five ingredients until very smooth. Mix dry ingredients. Combine all ingredients and stir to combine thoroughly.
  3. Drop batter by large spoonfuls onto baking sheet and then flatten down to about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thickness. Bake for about 8 minutes, or until tops develop cracks. They won’t look quite done. That’s ok. Remove sheet from oven, and wait 10 minutes before transferring cookies to plate.

I would like to have one right now. I won’t wait on another natural disaster to make them again!