Fresh out of bed, I was set on doing what I’d done the last few Sunday mornings: whip up buttermilk biscuits. Then I saw @writingherstory‘s tweet about  Lemon-Lavender scones, and was sufficiently intrigued. I went through the ingredient list and thought I’d give it a go even though was out of lemons and fat-free yogurt (well, to be honest I never really have fat-free yogurt).  Lime zest and juice, and homemade creme fraiche would perform well enough as stand-ins.

Coco’s recipe from her Roost blog was well-written and made a really kick-ass, tender scone. The glaze is sweet, limey and compliments the scone very well (the lime zest flavor did not come through in the scones themselves). I usually skip glazes, but this one was worth it. Please see my amendments below:

Lavender-Lime Scones

Makes 6 scones

Based on Coco’s Lemon Lavender Scones from Roost

• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated lime zest
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped dried lavender
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch chunks and chilled
• 1/2 cup homemade crème fraiche (or yogurt) (Crème Fraiche recipe here)
• 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix first 5 ingredients in a food processor bowl. Add zest and 1 1/2 tsp of dried lavender, and pulse to mix. Add butter to dry ingredients, and pulse until butter chunks are pea-sized. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl.

Combine yogurt and buttermilk in a small bowl. Add to dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until dough comes together.

Coat your hands with flour and pull dough out onto a well-floured surface. Knead dough for a minute, folding and flattening it several times. (The dough will remain quite moist.) Pat dough into a 9- x 4-inch rectangle, about 1 inch thick, and cut dough into 6 equal triangles.

Lift scones onto the prepared baking sheet and bake on center rack of oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool scones on baking sheet for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Glaze: Combine remaining 1 teaspoon lavender, powdered sugar and lime juice, and mix with a fork until smooth. Drizzle over warm scones.

Skip is the producer of The Gourmetro. He bakes on cloudy Sunday mornings. Read about his culinary travels through the South as Dan over at ‘Ham Sandwich, see his published works on Aisle 9, and talk with him on Twitter.

I have a lot of fond memories of these biscuits as an eight-year-old on humid summer days in my Dad’s kitchen, but I hadn’t picked up the recipe since 2005, when I began experimenting with it. Vegetable shortening was the first item on the list (I can hardly abide it). I started by reducing it to half-and-half butter and shortening , then all butter, then I got crazy and tried substituting olive oil. A lazy baker, I stopped rolling the dough and began producing oddly shaped drop biscuits. They had some flake, the familiar crumb and half the mess, but they weren’t the same.

Five years later with a quart of full-fat buttermilk in the fridge, I pulled out the old recipe. Looking it over, I saw some places I could improve on my Uncle Joe’s old biscuits. My food processor incorporated the butter and I patted out the dough by hand. That first all-butter batch was well-layered but greasy and flat. I fired up the oven again, and reduced the butter by 25 percent (leaving all other measurements alone). I processed that second batch less, froze the butter  beforehand, and was constantly conscious of how much I handled the dough.

The result? Damn good (if I must say so myself).

It is important to mind the buttermilk. Only add enough to bring the dough together. The amount will vary greatly depending on the milk’s fat content and the general humidity. Next time I will try refrigerating the dough 10 minutes before baking.

[March 7, 2010 UPDATE] Retried biscuits with reduced-fat buttermilk to find that it required about the same amount (3/4 cup). Reduced butter to 1/2 cup and added 1/4 cup vegetable shortening. The texture was slightly more tender, but not enough for me to switch from the all-butter. Cooking time increased dramatically. If using shortening, add 1/4 teaspoon salt. In fact, the recipe has been adjusted for slightly more salt.

[June 13, 2010 UPDATE] Biscuit recipe performed better in the winter. Lately, they haven’t been so hot. The butter’s fat leaks out while baking and haven’t come out as fluffy. I’ve tried all different types of butter, as well as grating it rather than processing. Yesterday I added a bit of baking soda to some success.

–

Buttermilk Biscuits

Adapted from Joe Kadlec’s recipe

Makes about 8 3-inch biscuits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup butter
• 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk (up to 1 1/4 cup)

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut butter into 1/2-inch chunks and freeze 5 to 10 minutes.

Mix dry ingredients. Add butter and process in a food processor until butter pats are pea-sized. Pour into a large bowl and add buttermilk, adding additional until dough just comes together.

Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface. Pat or roll into a 1/2-inch-thick disk and fold in half. Repeat rolling and patting once. Cut with a 3-inch glass or biscuit cutter, re-rolling scraps once.

Bake biscuits on prepared baking sheet 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Dan is the producer of ‘Ham Sandwich. Read about his cooking adventures as Skip on The Gourmetro and learn about him on aisle-9.net.

Bread is not for the dabbler. At least in my mind, the sponges, starters, and not least, the yeast aren’t terribly friendly to the uninitiated. I have recently worked around bakers and it really made me want to come home to freshly baked bread. My last experience baking bread was a 14 hour French loaf debacle that made me appreciate the $2.99 loaf all the more. After that I left bread in Joanie’s capable hands.

Lately I’d seen a few ciabatta recipes and thought it was time to give it a shot. The biga, the sponge or starter, was particularly distressing but I decided to go ahead with it anyway. From what I had gathered from the 1999 Bon Appetit Ciabatta recipe and the March Cook’s Illustrated (subscription required), this particular bread was not the easiest customer.

After bouts of procrastination and general dread, the biga began. From the outset, it wasn’t behaving as I’d expected. Why did they have me proof the yeast in the food processor? When exactly was it supposed to start forming small clumps. How about one big clump with a few small ones? It would have to do because I was concerned about my food processor getting gummed up. Perhaps I’m too protective of it, but give me a break it was my first grown-up kitchen appliance. My fear turned out to be well-founded: biga got all up inside the blade and  fixed spinner thing. I hope I got it all out.

Feeling somewhat accomplished, I let the biga sit, chilling and covered, for two days until the next move. It didn’t look right. Distress. It never got a “thick oatmeal texture,” so much as a dry unbaked bread texture. Convinced of failure I forged on, dutifully kneading with one hand; making the quarter turns (clockwise, though the recipe didn’t specify); waiting ten, and twenty minutes at a time.

The dough rounded the bend, so to speak, when I turned it out onto the semolina-d cutting board. It finally started looking like dough and my heart lifted. The first dough half to be transferred to the baking sheet did not go willingly (I was stingy on the semolina and ended up manhandling it a bit). The second did, I dimpled both and set them in the waiting oven.

Twenty minutes later I had real bread. Made by my own hand. They cooled and I cut them open to see if Cook’s Illustrated would prove its authority again: they warned of giant air pockets. The first loaf was gorgeous (if I do say so myself): compact but with a nice crust and chewy crumb. The second loaf, however, was one giant air pocket with hardly any crumb. Much more like a pita than anything else. Fifty percent success on my first try isn’t bad on something so alchemistic as bread. I will try the Cook’s Illustrated recipe next to see if adding milk makes it more consistent.

I guess the bottom line is that I’d like to come home to freshly baked bread. I just don’t want to be the one baking it all the time. It was a good experience, and perhaps even medatitive, but I’m not dough-hooked. With my culinary adventures of late, I am even softening to the idea of aspic. Not much, mind you, but it’s a distinct option. (Don’t hold your breath.)

Skip is a producer at The Gourmetro. He lives, of all places, in Birmingham, Alabama where he has fallen in love with his newest kitchen gadget: an ice cream maker. He hopes the food processor doesn’t get jealous. You can read more at bhamsandwich.com and aisle-9.net.

In no particular order, allow me to disgorge some thoughts and links:

- Pre-made pesto from Costco is kind of my personal lazy-dinner lifesaver. Add more garlic, add some heavy cream, pour it over chicken, put in some lemon and spoon it over some fish…whatever! All is within the realm of possibility! I’M LAZY ADDICTED.

- I love bakeries and baking, and I could never do a diet that didn’t let me eat a ton of bread. Appalling idea. Take all the fun out of life along with the fat from your thighs. Near my new place, I have Buzz (which I haven’t tried yet but fully intend to), and the Shirlington outpost of CakeLove, which I visited the other day before seeing Juno. More pricey than I remembered, but if you’re in the area, grabbing a Crunchy Feet ain’t so bad as you walk. I know there’s a Great Harvest somewhere, but unfortunately haven’t had much of a chance to find it, and oh man, a Krispy Kreme naught but four miles down Route 1.

- In baking news, I have been making mad amounts of banana bread, since an entire hand doesn’t seem to get consumed before the last three or so get irrevocably brown. Not banana NUT bread, mind you – nuts feel like a dilution of the pure banana derriciousness.

Quick and dirty recipe:

- 4 redonkulously ripe bananas (what can brown do for you? ::snerk)

- 1.5 c. flour (I usually do half wheat, half white. No idea why. I think my brain thinks it’s vaguely “healthy.” No science backing that one up what-so-ever.)

- 8 tsp. butter (one stick…butterstick…PANDA!)

- 1 c. sugar

- 1 tsp. baking soda

- 1 tsp. baking power

- 2 eggs

- pinch of salt

- cinnamon to taste if so desired

Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes for a loaf, 10-13 minutes for mini muffins, and like…25-30 for normal human-sized muffins. Or until a toothpick, knife, letter opener, some variety of pointy thing comes out clean.

- On the DC Restaurant list, I hit TenPenh (on 10th and Pennsylvannia Ave…GET IT??? ha.) and Southside 815 in Alexandria on S. Washington Street recently. TenPenh was actually pretty good, despite the inconsistency of reviews on ChowHound. I had the Lumpia, the Beef Tenderloin, and the Saigon pumpkin bread for dessert. We can’t forget the Mangolian Mist martini, either – derricious! And during Restaurant Week, it’s a pretty decent deal at $30 for three courses.

On the other hand, I wasn’t particularly impressed by Southside 815. Solid, but not impressive. I prefer Old Hickory Grille on Route 50 by FAR for my comfortable, Southernish-cookin’ fix. On Fridays and Saturdays, Hickory’s crawfish bisque is fucking amazing. For serious. As in, I have a semi-regular appointment with this restaurant for cornbread knots and bisque. Oh man. Have I mentioned this place before?

- On the eco-fooding front, I’ve been giving serious consideration to joining a CSA (community-supported agriculture). I’m not ever going to be giving up meat, cheese, or milk, so I’ve been thinking about what I can do to make my eating habits more earth-friendly and healthy within my parameters. This is one strategy I’m considering – adding more local and seasonal:

Basically, you sign up for a share of what an area farm produces, and you can either pick it up at a drop-off point nearby, or have it delivered. Generally, the share lasts through the growing season, approximately 22 weeks from May-ish to October-ish, and you get whatever’s growing on that particular farm at that particular time. It runs around $20-30 a week for a share big enough for two people who cook at home most of the week. Sites like Future Harvest and LocalHarvest can help you find a farm. There are also meat, milk, egg, fruit, and winter veggie shares available. There are general caveats though; this isn’t really for the unadventurous eater, as there aren’t really guaranteed lists for what you’ll get every week. You have to be willing to experiment.

- And finally, a request: If you’ve had any experience with Anson Mills, TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT. I’m about to buy some, but I want more details about the baking/cooking process than the (pretty gorgeous) website supplies.

There, I’ve probably overwhelmed you with my scatterbrained-ness, so I’ll save some for next time.

Cooking for people still terrifies me. When my editor asked me to bring dessert to a small gathering the other night, I was momentarily paralyzed. Should I bring out the old show stopper poached pears? No. She has a favorite recipe of her own, and I probably shouldn’t challenge it. Something with chocolate? Maybe. But what? But what.

I only had a few hours, so that killed the [amazing] chocolate ganache tarte [picture]. After a few minutes, I remembered a conversation we’d had a few weeks before about thumbprint cookies. I bought one from the Continental Bakery for a dollar apiece, was rightly annoyed and vowed to make some myself. [Don't get me wrong, I think Continental and Chez Lulu do some great stuff but their prices are highway robbery].

Bingo. Thumbprint cookies. I figured it would be better to totally rock a simple recipe, so I found one from Bon Appetit. The lemon peels and incredibly short procedure helped it stand out from the rest.

Assembly was easy but would have been better if I’d let the butter soften more. Ingredients went everywhere when I creamed the butter and sugar. I filled half of the cookies with peach-raspberry jam, my favorite from Long Island’s Briermere Farms, and the rest with Favorit apricot jam. I’m not sure what it was about the apricot jam, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I opted for the chewier filling and jammed the cookies before baking.

They were a total hit: buttery, lemony, and as-sweet-as-you-like (depending on your jam). The reactions were almost over-the-top; it took me a few seconds to decide whether the other guests were being sincere. I knew for sure when they’d each eaten about six cookies a piece.