Scones, round two!

This time with chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and a peanut butter layer. You can probably leave out the coconut flakes, or replace the peanut butter layer with nutella!
Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter (cold, or frozen)

1/2 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of coconut flakes (optional)

1 egg
1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
1/2 cup of yogurt (tart or vanilla should work) or sour cream


8 tsp peanut butter


Oven preheated to 400*

Directions:
1. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (or in my case, dump them in a bowl and stir with a fork)
2. Cut the cold butter into small cubes, and add to the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter, whisk, or fork. It should be grainy/sandy when it's well incorporated.
3. Add the chocolate chips and coconut flakes.
4. Whisk the egg, extract, and yogurt together, and then add to the flour/butter mixture.
5. Mix with a fork until you can't anymore, and then work it with your hands until you have a nice ball.
6. Lightly flour a cutting board, and then place the ball on it. Flatten into a disk about 8-9 inches across (or 3/4 inch thick). 
7. Cut into 8 pieces with a pizza cutter (or sharp knife).
8. Cut each slice in half (not all the way through) like you're making a sandwich, so that when you open the scone, it looks like a diamond.
9. Put about 1 tsp of peanut butter inside the scone, and reseal it.
10. Place the scones on a greased and floured cookie sheet, sprinkle a little sugar on top of each one, if desired, and then bake at 400 for 16-18 minutes (the tops should be slightly golden.

Grapefruit Cheesecake-Cupcakes. Success!

Lime Cheesecake-Cupcakes

My friends and I had an Iron Chef competition recently, and the secret ingredient was....LIME!

This was a creation that happened, well, by accident. In any case, it was a very delicious accident and I thought I'd share:

Ingredients:

Cake:

1/2 cup butter, softened (not melted)

2/3 cups of sugar

1 8 oz package of fat free cream cheese (or the regular stuff)

1 Tbsp lime zest

2 eggs

3 drops of green food coloring (optional)

1 cup of flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Glaze:

3/4 cup of powdered sugar

1/4 tsp lime zest (plus extra for garnishing, if desired)

juice of about 2 limes

Directions:

0. Preheat the oven to 325F

1. Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer at low speed

2. Add the cream cheese and lime zest, and beat until smooth

3. Add the eggs and green food coloring, and beat until smooth

4. Gradually sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt, beating at low speed until just incorporated. As mama always says, "don't overbeat!" Suriously though. Once the flour is close to being incorporated, I usually switch over to a spatula and start folding the mixture the rest of the way.

5. Divide the batter evenly into 12 cupcake cups with liners.

6. Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes (depending on your oven, I'd start checking every five minutes or so at around 25 minutes - these baked for about 30-35 minutes). The tops should feel firm. You can always test one if you're not sure   :) The inside should be dense and moist, but not gooey - kinda like the lovechild of a cupcake and a cheesecake.

7. Remove from oven, and transfer to a wire rack after 10 minutes to cool

8. For the glaze, add the powdered sugar to a bowl with the lime zest.

9. Cut the limes into quarters, and add the juice of the lime slices one at a time, stirring with a fork, until the glaze looks like this:

10. Once the cupcakes cool, invert them into the glaze, wait for about 2 seconds, and then slowly lift them out and put em on a plate. Easy peezy.

11. Garnish with the extra lime zest, if desired.

12. Try not to eat them all

You can probably sub out the lime with any sort of citrus fruit. Grapefruit cakes might be interesting...

By the way, we won the competition  ;)

I might post the other recipes