scones, soft 's'

I watched a mesmerizing interview yesterday, one of my favourite performers of all times, Sir Elton John spoke to Elvis Costello about his road to success, his favourite performers/the ones who most influence(d) him, and the topic that got me the most teary eyed was the discussion about real talent. How years ago, performers and bands would never get a record deal until they showed they could play live. It reminds me of being a kid in Argentina and having to take written tests one day, and Q&A's with your teacher the next. I loved the Q&A because it felt more normal to me to speak to someone about a topic, instead of being forced to answer a question on 2 lines.

What I'm trying to say is that real/authentic is something that I know many of my friends and some of you that read my blog champion daily. Real/authentic is the quality that Elton John values in music, and it's the quality that I value in food.
It infuriates me to see fast foods selling themselves as 'homemade', but I have no control over that; the only thing I can do is make sure that I continue to teach/model to my children that eating an apple they pick at the orchard is a gorgeous sweet miracle which they are happy to accept as a 'treat'. Speaking of treats, here's an updated version of a scone recipe we continue tweaking:



VANILLA-MILK SCONES
The kids call cow's milk, vanilla-milk, thus this recipe's title


3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter or 3/4 cup *room temperature*
1 cup milk (I was using buttermilk, now I use 2%)
1/2 cup vanilla chocolate chips or ANY chip, dried fruit, or grated cheese

* In your largest bowl combine all the dry ingredients (with a fork or whisk)
* Add butter to the dry mixture by mushing/rubbing/it into the flour mixture, it's like meditation, do it until it's sand-like
* Add milk and mix with a fork (I mix with a fork until all milk is dried up, then I keep mixing it by hand)
* add vanilla chocolate chips, and mix
* turn dough onto a large floured surface
* flatten out dough by pressing it with heel of hand and fingers, until about 1/4 inch thick
* I cut the dough into 12 rectangular large-ish pieces, but any geometric shape is fine, you can also use large cookie cutters
* bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 15 minutes (we have a gas stove and 15 minutes, middle rack always bakes a perfect scone)

Most Sundays I double the ingredients and the results are perfect.