John's wife

As I prepare for my week off next week (mandatory unpaid leave of absence, but hey, at least I have a job), I'm doing some mental meal planning. It is my goal that we eat at home, 3 meals at day for 9 days. That's only 27 meals.

I keep finding and losing this best ever scone recipe, and I know 2 people who have either never had it or lost it, so I'm going to do us all a service and type it in here. I will also do me a service and make them next week.

Apricot-Orange Cream Scones

2 cups all purpose flour
3 T granulated sugar
3 t baking powder
2 t grated orange peel
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 c white vanilla baking chips (I can never find these in the store)
1 1/3 cups whipping cream
1 c powdered sugar
2 - 3 T orange juice

1. Heat oven to 400 F. Lightly grease cookie sheet. In large bowl, mix flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, orange peel and salt until well blended. Stir in apricots and baking chips. Add whipping cream all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. (Over mixing will make your scones tough.)

2. On lightly floured surface, knead dough 6-7 times until smooth. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into 6 inch round; cut each into 6 wedges. Place 2 inches apart on prepared sheet.

3. Bake 10-13 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix powdered sugar and enough orange juice for desired frizzling consistency. Drizzle icing over warm scones.

The recipe suggesting the following variations:

Cranberry-Pecan Scones:
Substitute dried sweetened cranberries for the apricots and add 1/2 c chopped pecans.

Double Chocolate-Almond Scones
Omit orange peel and apricots. Stir in 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips with the white baking chips. Add 1/4 t almond extract with the whipping cream. For the icing, subsitute water for the orange juice and stir in 1/4 t almond extract. Sprinkle tops of iced scones with 2 T sliced almonds.

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