Saturday, December 18, 2010

Easy Christmas Cookies IV

Okay...so not sure if anyone but my mom has noticed that I stopped posting Easy Christmas Cookie recipes...
2 reasons...
...I got really busy this week...too busy to bake and then blog about it
...I really don't need any more treats in this house...I can hear myself getting fatter....
...and well...wasn't sure anyone cared because I wasn't getting any responses to my Easy Christmas Cookie posts...oh, woe is me....
guess that's 3 reasons....

so this one's for you mom!
this is a stretch in the 'cookie' department...
and in the 5 ingredient department too....

but I love scones so much and they are so easy...
and the cranberry orange scones just SCREAM Christmas to me...
...I just want to share...
and these are even easier than the normal scone!
I used the Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake mix as a base for the scone, how EASY can it get!

okay...
Scones
3 3/4 cups Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake Baking Mix
1/2 cup salted butter
3 Tbsp sugar
1 cup cold milk
*Mix-ins (listed at the bottom)

add baking mix and sugar to a large bowl.  Using a pasty cutter, cut butter into the mix until lumps resemble coarse meal.  Add milk and stir together until moistened.  Place dough on a floured work space and knead  5 times to form a ball.

...here is where I like to change up the scones...traditional scone shape is triangle wedge...to make the wedge you can form your ball into an 8 inch circle and cut it pie style into wedges...but I like to take a real small biscuit cutter and make small bite sized scones...and I think these bite sized scones are better for the Christmas Cookie alternative, they look nice and sweet on a plate with other Christmas Cookies...

Place scones on a greased sheet pan, bake in a 400 degree oven for 8- 10 minutes...or longer if you are doing the large wedge style, until they are golden brown....serve warm with butter and jam... or glaze with vanilla glaze.

vanilla glaze
mix vanilla and powder sugar together until you get a nice smooth glaze consistency...drizzle over scones...

*mix-ins....this is where the 5 ingredients gets hazy...

I like to make Orange Cranberry scones this type of year...
1 tsp of orange peel zest (finely grated orange peel)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp vanilla

add the orange zest to the baking mix before cutting in the butter
put the cranberries and vanilla into the milk and allow to sit for 5 minutes...pour the milk out and mix it into the baking mix/butter combo...add the milk & vanilla soaked cranberries when you get ready to knead the dough, and just knead them in...

Lemon Scones...just add 1 tsp of lemon zest...and then glaze scones with lemon glaze
lemon glaze (powder sugar mixed with lemon juice until you have a nice drizzling consistency)
add some poppy seeds for a lemon poppy seed scone

Chocolate Chip Scones
add 1 tsp of vanilla to milk
knead in 1/2 cup chocolate chips when kneading dough

so many options for changing these up...just enjoy...

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