a little monday pick me up

Reunions are wonderful, until they end. I always have a hard time the day after a weekend with friends. I look forward to the weekend for so long and then it arrives, passes in a fun and wonderful flash and then it's over. We had a great time with our first visitor - Zach's brother Al. He arrived on Wednesday and we toured the city for a couple days and then left for Davos first thing on Friday morning. We skied Friday and Saturday and came home yesterday. Now it's Monday and Al is gone and our weekend of fun is officially over. What to do?...BAKE! There's nothing a little flour, butter and sugar can't fix. I decided to make some orange/cranberry/almond scones. As per usual some ingredients got lost in translation and I ended up with blood oranges instead of regular oranges (note to self: blut means blood), but in this case it turned out to be a happy, albeit delicious accident.
We experienced a variety of weather conditions in Davos, from sunny and beautiful, to complete snowy white out. These two photos were taken the same day, about 2 hours apart.
I love this photo of Zach and Al. We are at the top of the mountain about to go down one of the steepest runs in whiteout conditions. If I had taken this photo a couple of hours earlier, the boys would have been standing against a backdrop of mountains that appear to continue into the distance forever.
These scones were the perfect cure for my post weekend blues. They are light, flakey and delicious. I always find scones to be a bit too big, so I made mini scones, perfect for a tea-time snack.
I was surprised when I cut into these oranges to find that they were blood oranges. The vibrant colors and the sweet juice made this a fortunate accident. Regular oranges would have been great too, but these added a bit of a punch to the scone and to the plate.
ingredients: adapted from Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything

- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

- 1 scant tsp salt

- 4 tsp baking powder

- 2 tbsp sugar

- 1/4 cup almond flour

- 5 tbsp cold butter

- 3 eggs

- 3/4 cup cream

- 3 tbsp fresh orange juice

- 2/3 cup cranberries

- 2/3 cup sliced almonds

- zest from 1 orange

Heat the oven to 450

Mix the flours, salt, baking powder, 1 tbsp of the sugar and the almond flour in a large bowl. Cut in the butter so that it is well integrated. In another bowl mix 2 of the eggs and the cream. Once combined mix in the orange juice. With a few quick strokes combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the cranberries, almonds and orange zest.

On a floured surface kneed the dough 10 times, but no more. If the dough is incredibly sticky add some flour, which I had to do, but just a bit. My dough was incredibly sticky, but I just went with it, added a bit of flour, and then proceeded to flatten it to a 3/4 rectangle and with a round cookie cutter, cut the scones out of the dough.

Place on a non stick cookie sheet. Beat the other egg. Brush a bit of the egg over the cut out scones and the sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown. Eat the same day!

I would love to eat some of these scones in this cute little house!
The scone in this picture is actually the my second. I had to test them so I ate one right out of the oven. yum!!
Hopefully this post brightens your Monday - I know it brightened mine! Now it's time to make some dinner with Zach...if he's even hungry after the two scones he ate within a minute of getting home from work.