Seed sorting and scones

I'm sitting here with my 2011 seeds. Over the winter I sort them by type, but come spring I like to arrange them by planting date-indoors and outdoors- so that when it comes time to plant I just grab the section labeled by date.

Sorting time is 3 scones.

Blueberry scones with oat flour

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats, ground
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 pint blueberries
½ cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position.
To make oat flour, grind whole oats in a small food processor for about 1-2 minutes, or until it becomes a fine powder. Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the rhubarb into the flour mixture. Lightly beat the honey, egg, yolk, and sourcream together in a bowl (use the same one you used for the rhubarb), then add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined.
Drop in generous spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Nuts

This morning I took my basic scones recipe-- 2:2:1 white:wheat:oatmeal, a stick of butter, 2 cups liquid-- and adapted it for nut meal. This worked really nicely with hazelnut but walnuts were too bitter. I think if you use walnuts, you might want to amp up the sweet and cut the walnut meal down to only 1/2 cup.

These are delicious. Somebody try this with almonds and report back!

Orange hazelnut scones
an original Sconeday recipe

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup hazelnut meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 T (more or less) orange zest (zest from 2-3 oranges)
6T (3/4 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces (the hazelnuts have a high oil content, so this recipe uses less butter than a typical scone recipe)

Wet ingredients:
1 large egg
1/3 cup sourcream
1/4 cup honey
1/3 c orange juice with pulp
optional: 1/4 teaspoon orange extract

½ cup dried fruit, chopped fine (mango, papaya, golden raisins, etc.)

Preheat oven to 425°.

Zest and juice 2-3 oranges. To make orange zest, grate the outer colored rind with a microplane, a standard grater (use the smallest holes) or a zesting tool. Take off just the very outer rind, don't go into the white "pith," which is bitter. I actually dry and keep any unused zest. It's an incredibly handy thing to have around, and costs a fortune to buy in the spice aisle.

To make hazelnut meal: If you have whole hazelnuts, you'll need to crack the shells and remove the meat. Just gently smash them with a jar or a meat mallet, the shell will crack and the nut will pop out. Heat oven to 350F/175C. Spread about 1/1/4 cups of hazelnuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. Wrap the nuts in a small kitchen towel for 2 minutes while they are still warm, then rub the nuts together so that any burnt skins come off (the skins are bitter, so you need to peel them). Put the peeled nuts in a blender or food processor and pulse into a coarse powder. There is oil in nuts, of course, so this will not be dry like flour. 1 1/4 cups shelled hazelnuts or 1 pound unshelled nuts will yield about 1 cup of meal. This is kind of a pain in the @$$; I say just by shelled hazelnuts.

Plump the dried fruit- put in a pot or microwave container in water (fruit should be completely submerged) and bring to a boil, let it sit in the hot water for a few minutes, then drain thoroughly.

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, then mix in fruit until blended. Add dried fruit. Whisk together egg and liquid ingredients in a separate bowl; add to flour /fruit mixture, and mix just until blended. Dough will be sticky.

Spoon in large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until golden. Made 14 scones, about 3" across each.