Pear -Cardamom Walnut Scones

August 20, 2016 

The fridge and freezer cleanout continues. I have been trying to cook our way out of my pantry, freezer and cupboard so that we will have limited supplies when we move. I spied a few blocks of Pulgra butter in my freezer and a couple of ripe pears in the fridge. Perfect for the Cardamon Pear Scones I had earmarked to make from Baking with Less Sugar book. I had to make do with pecans as I had yet to replenish my walnut supply after giving the bag to my sister.

"ORANGE YOU COMING SOPHIE?" scones

I have been here since March 30, waiting for my niece Sophie to grace the world with her presence. For awhile, before I flew across the country to be with my sister as she welcomes her second child and to help with those initial blurry nights and days of a newborn, we worried I would not be on time!! Needless worry..... Her brother was 10 days late and she wanted to follow suit. I had almost given up hope of seeing her before my trip ended. Today, 6 days after her due date, she is deciding to grace us with her presence. She is making her track into the world even as I am writing this blog posting.


This morning, my sister had a hankering for some scones. As I gathered the ingredients for an Orange Raisin Scones, my sister leaned on wall by the kitchen and remarked " Hmm, that might be a contraction". I was not falling for that! We had some false alarms along the way- only to be punctuated with a "No contraction at all" proclamation during yesterday's stress test. Turns out, it is the Real Thing this time. In honor of this event I am calling this scone -"Orange You  Coming Sophie?" Scones - get it???

Blueberry Scones

This posting is in honor of the secretaries and the other wonderful ladies at the front office of my son's high school. My son recently suffered an injury to his eye and he had to be out of school for awhile. These ladies helped get his homework from his various classes and got him his off campus passes for follow up doctor visits. This truly helped me in a stressful situation. I bake some of these blueberry scones as a treat to these special ladies.

The pictures are from another batch I made at our Temecula weekend home. I had fresh peaches and blueberries but no sour cream. I improvised by adding 2 tablespoon of buttermilk powder to 1 whole cup of milk in place of the 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 sour cream. Another substitution I made was 1/2 stick of non-trans fat cisco and 1/2 stick of butter in place of 1 stick of butter. Again, based on what I had on hand. I am a great believer in making it work! The scones were flaky and moist. Original recipe was from CooksIllustrated. These are so easy and fast to make that I made an extra batch for the freezer. I freeze them unbaked so that I can have truly fresh Blueberry Scones the next time I am up at the house.