Quit it with the lavender, already.

It was a white Thanksgiving in Abilene, Texas! 

 

Oh my.  It has been way too long.  I guess, with all the pre-Thanksgiving hubbub, blogging felt like a chore.  But I definitely baked some scones: two more batches of the dark chocolate and lavender ones.  I feel pretty satisfied with the final batch, although people still say they can’t really taste the lavender.  I blame that on their own poor palates.  Or maybe I am so overloaded with lavender that that is the only thing I can taste in those scones.  Between lavender-scented air freshener, dish soap, hand soap, face oil (from the Farmers’ Market, remember?), and scones, I’m tasting lavender in everything.  I might need an itty bitty lavender break.

(Although, I do think a plain lavender scone, sans chocolate, would be veddy nice.  Will work on that in a few weeks, perhaps.)

So, one of the reasons I began my Great Scone Experiment was to practice for scone-a-licious Christmas gifts.  I know, I know.  People eat enough during the holidays - I don’t need to add to their waistlines with buttery scones.  But I think they’re nice and festive and somewhat interesting.  Maman suggested I give them as gifts with a ramekin of homemade honey butter.  Doesn’t that sound lovely?  She’s full of good ideas.

It turns out, scones also work nicely as Thanksgiving gifts and “Thank-you-for-having-me-in-your-home” gifts and “Thank-you-for-meeting-me-at-the-airport” gifts and “Thank-you-for-procuring-me-a-boffo-parking-space-in-the-garage-that-has-wider-parking-spaces” gifts.  It was nice having several batches of my dark chocolate and lavender scones to hand out to awesome people.  It made me feel like the Queen bestowing OBEs on the worthy.  As if I got to say, “YOU are super, and YOU are super.  Please, take this small scone in recognition of your super-ness.”

People appeared to be pleased.  Even if they couldn’t taste the lavender, most people didn’t object to chocolate in their pastry.  Moral: bake scones!  People will like you for it!

Another bonus: the more scones you give away, the less you eat.  I have yet to conquer the urge to eat one right out of the oven: rolling it over in my mouth, burning my tongue, and trying to savour it like a fine wine.  But I have at least managed to give the others away before I’m tempted again.  That I need to keep an eye on my own waistline was brought home to me by a conversation I had at the Farmers’ Market with some people selling chlorophyll juice (not kidding).  The juice was sweetened with agave and was actually very tasty.  The guy behind the counter suggested I try the chlorophyll juice sweetened with honey.

• Him:  You don’t look like one of those vegans who won’t eat honey.
• Me:  Um, what is that supposed to mean?
• Woman, also behind the counter:  Honey, you look great.  You’re what they used to call thin. 
• Me:  (eyes widen in disbelief)
• Woman:  I mean, Nicole Ricchie and all those skinny girls… (trails off)

End Scene

USED to call thin?!  Anyways.  One scone per batch for me.

Experiments #2B & 2C:  Dark Chocolate & Lavender and Dark Chocolate & Lavender.

 

The biggest change I made in both of these recipes was to cut the proportion of chocolate in half.  Originally, I used almost two bars of dark chocolate.  In batch 2B I used only one bar, and in 2C I used about three quarters of a bar.  This amount was plenty of chocolate.  It is ooey-gooey and delicious, but there is definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing.  And, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, too much chocolate overpowers the lavender.

Another change I made was throwing in the chocolate with the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda), instead of waiting to roll it into the dough at the last minute.  This technique worked better for me because it prevented the baking scones from bursting open, exposing their chocolatey bellies, and basically burning all the chocolate.  If the chocolate is already a part of the dough, it is more wholly incorporated and helps the scone keep its shape when it bakes.  Definitely a technique worth trying on other scones.

I also upped my lavender proportions.  For batch 2B I steeped another round of lavender in the leftover lavender-infused milk from 2A.  Ergo, the milk was doubly infused.  This worked well, but it sounded time-consuming to steep lavender twice for batch 2C, especially because the milk needs to chill in the icebox for a while before using it to make the scones.  So instead of a double steeping, I steeped a LOT of lavender in the milk: I almost brought the milk to a boil as I added lavender sprigs, then I turned off the heat and covered the pot to let the lavender steep, and after it was room temperature-ish I put the whole thing as-is into the icebox.  I waited until I was about to whisk the milk up with the sour cream before straining the lavender out.  This worked very well and was not at all labor-intensive.

Finally, presentation-wise, I cut the scones into smaller pieces and dusted them with sanding sugar.  I baked the scones at their regular size (one batch = eight pieces), then cut each scone in half once they had cooled off a bit from the oven.  So I had sixteen scones to spread around in my benevolence.  As for the sugar, I tried to dust with sugar pre-oven for batch 2A, and then I tried to bathe in melted butter & dust with sugar post-oven for batch 2B, but neither of these techniques looked great.  Actually, they looked as if I had done nothing to the scone tops.  But for batch 2C, I just dusted with sugar -no melted butter bath – post-oven, and that leant a glimmery sheen to the scone tops.  Sweet!  Literally!

Note: these scones aren’t very good at room temperature or less.  They definitely need to be warmed up in the oven.  And they keep very well for at least five days in a Ziploc baggie.  I know, I tried. 

Here are pictures of some beautiful dark chocolate & lavender scones.  Don’t tell me that YOU could resist a fresh-baked one right from the oven…

Batch 2B: regular-sized scones.

 Batch 2C: 16 dainty scones.