"Sconay's"

For my birthday earlier this month, I received a bunch of gift cards to a local kitchen supply store, Kitchen Fantasy. I spent them all within a week, and I'm pretty sure I have enough equipment to open my own bakery...(I could always have more though.). I bought various things like different size cake pans, to a bunch of decorating tools I need. One item in particular has come into play in the house almost everyday, in some sort of way: a mini scone pan...or "sconay" as Emma and I say while playing around.

I first saw the mini scone pan in a King Arthur Flour magazine  that my teacher gave me, and I thought it would be cute to have, but do I really eat or make scones all that often? Like I do with all magazines, I circled the item and continued skimming. After looking through the magazine, I headed to Pinterest to get my hourly fix of the "Food and Drink" category. It seemed to me that there were a lot more scone recipes then normal, so I took it as a sign and decided to buy the dang mini scone pan, even if I only used it once or twice.

I felt a little guilty buying it, as the traditional way of making scones, and they way I was taught, is in a free-formed circle and cutting it into 8 so that they are all off by just a little. Using a specific pan to produce 16 perfectly shaped scones seemed to be cheating to me, and I know my teachers would kill me.

I took my 3 large bags from Kitchen Fantasy and put all my new equipment away, but that stupid pan kept calling me: "Make some scones, Claire...some scooooooones." So that's what I did. My family likes to buy super mini scones sometimes for breakfast, but it's a treat since it's so far in between, so I figured making them fresh would be even better. That was convincing enough for me.

My newly-acquired taste for pumpkin led me to do a pumpkin scone, and what's anything pumpkin without spice? I ended up making a pumpkin pie scone with a spiced glaze, and dang, they were good. I immediately lost all regret I had for buying the pan.

Pumpkin Pie scones after being glazed

Those dissappeared pretty fast, and my dad even took a few to some of his friends, they seemed to like it, so I'm glad.

Cream of Heath scones cooling

I usually try to bake something every day, or else I go through some type of withdrawal process, so within the next couple days, I decided to make a new type of scone. I found the recipe for a classic sour cream scone through pinterest, but changed the recipe a bit to my liking. I personally like cream scones, but I wasn't sure if everyone else would due to their lack of sweetness. I debated with myself on whether or not to add a sweetening agent, and right as I was going to place the batter in the pan, I chose to throw in some sweetness. I looked through our pantry and tried to think what everyone would enjoy. Cinnamon chips? No...not the right profile I was going for. Butterscotch? Na. Chocolate? Yeah, it would work, but it just seemed too plain...and then, I saw Heath bar chips. PERFECT! Everyone loves Heath bars, and its not as traditional as a chocolate chip scone. I threw a handful of the chips in and mixed them in, spread the batter in the pan, and popped it in the oven. About 10 minutes later I took them out and put them on a cooling rack. I decided not to glaze them, since they weren't meant to be overly sweet. I called my creation "Cream of Heath Scones" naturally.

I took a bite out of them and actually, didn't care for it. When I got the idea of "Heath" I was expecting the Heath flavor to be a bit more overpowering than it was. Oh well.

Emma was the first one to try them. She's my main tester since she's so unbelievably picky. I would consider it a "win" if I even got her to try it. She did, and she actually liked them...a lot. She had another before I took the tray around for everyone else to try. I watched nervously as everyone took a bite; I was sure that this one wasn't going to be a keeper. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them, they insisted that the sweetness was at a perfect level for them. Which is good for me, I wanted them gone. That's what every chef wants. 

I guess my dad was now a believer of scones, and decided to try one at his job site today with some of the guys he works with. He must have felt pretty strongly about this particular scone, because he called me to tell me how disgusting it was, "It was hard and it was burnt around the edges! I mean the chocolate chips were okay because its chocolate, but the scone was disgusting." He continued to tell me that this sparked up a conversation with the guys about the scones I've been making at home, and how I have now been summoned to make a batch for him to take to work on Saturday for him and the guys. He said there's one guy who seems more interested then the rest of them, and constantly asks my dad when he's going to bring something else of mine. I guess he told him about my Pumpkin ones, and the guy expressed how much he LOVES pumpkin pie, and yet, my dad insists that I make the Cream of Heath scones for the batch he takes to work. I'll be excited to hear what they have to say. Hey, its 'networking' isn't it?