savory scones

hi guys! if you follow me on instagram (or twitter, or are my friend on facebook) you've probably seen photos of various savory scones popping up here and there. of all the food photos that flood my feed, these get the most comments and recipe requests, and i live to serve, so! here we go - my basic savory scone recipe. it's highly adaptable - i've made everything from bacon, egg and cheese, to duck confit and arugula, to today's beet, goat cheese and rosemary.

     

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savory scones
yields 9 scones

1 1/2 cups AP flour
1/2 cup plus 2 T bread flour
1 T baking powder
1 T sugar
1 1/2 t salt
2 oz butter, cut into cubes and chilled
~ 1 cup fillings of your choice - chopped, cooked veggies, cheese, cooked meats, etc
enough cream to bring it together as a dough (approx. two cups, depending on the fillings you use)

1 egg, beaten with salt
cream
salt & pepper (or whatever you care to top them with)

dump the flours, powder, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor; pulse, then add the butter and pulse until the chunks are pea-sized throughout the mixture. dump into a big mixing bowl, then add the fillings and use your hands to coat them all in the dough; add cream, and gently mix with your hands just until it comes together as a biscuity dough.

dust a bit of flour on your work surface, and dump the dough out; pat it into a large square, about an inch high, and cut it into 9 pieces. place on a sheet pan; brush with the egg/cream mixture and top with salt and pepper, an herb, a small veggie, or whatever you care to - i try to use an item in the scone to help identify it.

bake at 350 for 15 - 20 minutes or so, until golden brown and a tester inserted comes out clean. cool for a few minutes and enjoy!

have fun with the fillings - just pay attention to the dough, and be careful not to add too much butter or cream - if i use a lot of bacon, for example, and use the rendered fat in the scones, i cut back on the butter.

enjoy!

xo audrey

in technicolor & sepia tones

now, with all the videos and wedding photos out of the way, it's back to our regularly scheduled programming.

wednesday night i had the privilege of attending an event at the coach store on bleecker street. it was a lovely event (as per usual, the waiters pegged me as "the girl who will eat anything" and always came to me first with their trays of h'ordeuvres and champagne [not that i'm complaining,]) not only for the food, drink, & beautiful bags, but it was teeming with lovely ladies - claire, christine, keiko, kim, natalie, lindsey, katy, and jenni. we all chatted, ate and drank, eyeballing the lovely purses all the while, until closing time when we got to choose whichever one we wanted. i selected this bright red shoulder bag from their new collection, which i think will work nicely with all the color in my wardrobe. i wore this peter jensen dress i snagged on sale at asos awhile ago and have been saving for a special occasion since. (for the purpose of full disclosure, these photos were actually taken in my kitchen last night while macarons were resting, haha. i woke up too late wednesday morning to take pre-event pictures, and got home way too late on wednesday.)





dress: peter jensen
brooch: c/o tiffany
shoes: thrifted
belt: thrifted
purse: c/o coach

i adore this dress. it has all this smocking (is that the right word?) coming off the collar that floats behind you as you walk. it's a tad big, though - i need to figure out a way to take it in a tad at the waist. and the red of the purse and blue of the dress are pretty much my favorite color combination, ever.

so! one of my exciting weekend plans is attending a bastille day party tomorrow evening in manhattan. i have a feeling i was invited half because they wanted me to bring sam and half because they wanted me to bring macarons - but hey, if i can put on a dress and dance, i'll take whatever invite i can get. so i stayed up last night baking a batch of vanilla bean shells, to be filled with dark chocolate ganache.



now. a word about macarons. i get emails asking for tips or advice from time to time, and i'm always happy to share any tips i have - after all, i've made my fair share of them, for events large and small, and i even went to french culinary school to be taught the proper way, for goodness sake. i STILL have my struggles with the things. some of it i blame on my awful, brooklynite oven - it's got hotspots worse than a damn volcano, and it often leads to leaning, wonky-footed macarons. sam has seen me lose it over a botched batch on more than one occasion. BUT. after a few pretty-damn-perfect batches in a row, i think i have three words that will change your macaron world forever: egg.white.powder.

when i'm having a tough time with macarons, i turn to this lady: she is a macaron master. her most recent french macaron recipe (linked) includes 5 grams of egg white powder with your sugar (what you use to make the meringue) and every time i've used this recipe they've been spot on. last night i tried it in my awful oven for the first time, and every single macaron came out, dare i say, perfect. here's the recipe i used last night:

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vanilla bean macarons with dark chocolate ganache

100 g egg whites (room temperature)
29 g sugar, with one whole vanilla bean's seeds scraped in
5 g egg white powder
125 g almond flour
200 g powdered sugar

sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar; set aside. combine sugar & egg white powder. whisk your egg whites (i just use a hand mixer, it gives you a bit more control than a stand mixer,) until there's no more yellow and they're white and foamy; slowly add the sugar/egg white powder, whisking all the while, and beat and beat until you have not-quite-stiff peaks and your mixture is white and glossy. use a sieve and sift in the almond flour/powdered sugar mix in five batches - mix in a fifth, fold in with a spatula until it's well mixed, and repeat 4 more times. once it's all combined and no lumps remain, spoon this into a piping bag and pipe onto parchment paper on a heavy duty sheet pan (pipe a tiny bit of batter onto the four corners of the tray, so that the parchment sticks down,) leaving about an inch between each dollop. tap the tray twice, hard, on a table to release any bubbles and let the macarons sit until they don't stick to your finger when you touch them - i let them go for about an hour. place them in a pre-heated 300 degree oven and bake for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through.

for the ganache:

4 ounces of dark chocolate and 4 ounces of cream. bring the cream to a boil and immediately pour over the chocolate; let it rest for a minute or two, then whisk slowly, from the inside, until it's all combined and smooth. let it sit until room temperature and then pipe a little dollop onto one half of a paired up macaron shell. voila!





what are your plans for the weekend? tonight i think we're staying in and taking it easy, and then tomorrow we've got some more baking to do (and i'm hoping to sneak off to the brooklyn flea) before our party in the evening. then on sunday, any of you new yorkers should come to williamsburg - my friend rachel, who started up terrific magazine, is bringing together a bunch of awesome brands, food, and booze for a big sale at union pool.



i'll be stopping by there early afternoon then heading to another friend's place for some barbecue and homemade ice cream.

hope you have a great one!

xo audrey

dinner for one

when sam isn't around, i am really, really lazy about cooking. what's my favorite thing in the world becomes something of a chore when there is no one exclaiming over how delicious the pasta is or how well this flavor pairs with that. a night home alone is usually a night of chinese takeout or cereal for dinner. i didn't have plans for anything grand when i came home last night - i carried my wedding dress, fresh from the tailor, all the way home on the subway, then stopped to pick up some dry cleaning (that i'd literally dropped of last november. the lady at the shop laughed in my face) and struggled to open the door to find a pile of mail and a big box from crate and barrel. i teetered up the stairs and barely managed to open the door without dropping everything; finally inside, i dumped everything on the couch and attacked the crate and barrel box with my keys. and voila.



new dishes. after my kvetching on sunday, i could hardly believe my luck - my sweet sister's mother-in-law, kathy, either read my mind or just happened to order the very things i wanted most of my registry. i texted sam "MOST EXCITING NEWS EVER," resolved to scrub up my kitchen and head to the grocery store so that i could get some ingredients to break these plates in with the tastiness they deserve.



lobster strawberry risotto. i took my inspiration from a couple of places - one of my favorite cookbooks includes a peach and pancetta risotto that is absolutely to die for, and i worked at a sushi restaurant when i lived in chicago that made a lobster strawberry maki special in the summer months. i had to deal with frozen lobster tail, which isn't ideal, but i have to say this was damn delicious.



lobster strawberry risotto

prep time: about 30 minutes
serves: 2 (or one pastry chef who eats like renee zellwegger preparing for her role as bridget jones.)

ingredients:
1 frozen lobster tail (or two if you'd like it to me a little more lobster-y)
1/2 tiny yellow onion, diced
about 1 cup of strawberries, cut into small cubes
1 T butter
3/4 cup of arborio rice
~ 1 1/4 cups of chicken stock
~ 3/4 cup of dry white wine
a few sprigs of thyme
1/4 t white pepper
1/2 t ground fennel
2 T marscarpone cheese




so. if you decide to make this more than an hour in advance, thaw out your lobster tail in the fridge the night before. much easier than what i had to do here. and just skip this step if you do. if not, get a pot with a little water and put a steaming basket in there; steam the lobster for just 3 minutes or so - you just want it to be thawed and easy to remove from the shell, not cooked at all, if possible. take it out and let it cool off a minute, then use some kitchen shears to cut the shell of the thing; rinse it, and chop it into bite-sized pieces.

start your butter in a good sized saucepan. once it's sizzling, turn the heat down to medium low and add your onion; toss it around until it starts to be transparent, then add your lobster for like 30 seconds, then your rice. mix this around the pot to keep it from sticking for a couple of minutes, then add half of the wine and half the chicken stock, turn it to low, and let it simmer, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking.



once most of the liquid has been absorbed, add the thyme, the fennel, and more chicken stock & wine. basically, just keep tasting and adding until it comes to the texture you want. make sure you keep it on low heat all the while. once the liquid is gone and the rice is nice and creamy but al dente, remove it from the heat, stir in the marscarpone cheese and the strawberries, and serve.



i also threw together a little side dish, just to ensure that i dirtied every new porringer. i am a hollandaise freak - i would eat a bowl for breakfast if i could - but every recipe i find makes way too much for one person. i thought i'd toast up some bread, grill some asparagus, and make my own recipe for solo hollandaise.

hollandaise sauce for one

1 egg yolk
2 T butter, divided
about 1/2 t lemon juice (1 quick squeeze of a lemon)
a dash of paprika & salt

in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, start 1T butter melting on the absolute lowest heat you can manage. once melted, stir in the yolk and whisk whisk whisk whisk whisk; add the other tablespoon of butter and whisk and whisk until melted. squeeze in your lemon juice and continue to stir; sauce is done when you can coat the back of a spoon and drag your finger through it and it stays put. nice and thick. add your paprika and salt and serve. they key to this is really to cook it on the lowest setting possible - if your butter is bubbling at all, your egg will cook up as soon as you add it and it's no good. slow and low, that is the tempo.



all right. i actually like my outfit but didn't get out of the shower in time for any outfit pics this am - more from me later!

xo audrey

out of character

hello everyone! i'm coming out from under a pile of wedding websites to quick post. i think i have about 88 tabs open right now - just to figure out what kind of placecards i want to do. i am a psychopath. the list of ideas i have so far is:

vintage award ribbons
plastic animals
fruit
vegetable seed packets
sugar cookies (names written in icing)
mini succulents (names on flags)
bottles of homemade infused oils
mini jars of curd or jam
tiny embroidery hoops?
strawberry plants?

somehow NONE of these satisfy me, so i keep thinking and browsing and scrawling down ideas. i'm totally losing it.




saturday night sam and i went to a skate/dance party, and i dragged a couple of pastry-making girlfriends with; we ended up sequestering ourselves to the kitchen table most of the night, drinking beer and talking pot de creme and soufflés. so when i groggily woke up sunday morning and remembered sam and i were supposed to get engagement (okay, yes, very belated) photos taken that day, i decided to whip together some brunch and try to get us in shape for a day in front of a camera. and with soufflés on the mind, i made these.

savory soufflés
(i made mine with goat cheese and prosciutto)

6 egg whites
3 egg yolks
dash of salt
55 g butter
60 g bread flour
180 mL milk
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 slices of prosciutto
about 2 oz goat cheese (half a log)
powdered pecorino romano cheese & melted butter for the ramekins

turn the oven to 350. place the prosciutto on a sheet of aluminum and let them crisp up in the oven for ten minutes or so, until good and crunchy, while you divide your eggs, prep your butter, etc. once they're out, turn the oven to 450.

put the egg whites in a bowl, carefully not getting any yolk in them. add a pinch or two of salt. wait.

prepare the ramekins by brushing butter along the sides and then coating them with the powdered cheese. you'll be able to fill about 6 1-cup ramekins.

put the minced garlic in the milk.

once the butter has melted, turn the heat to medium and add the flour. stir with a wooden spoon until it's well combined, and then keep stirring for awhile; it'll bubble, and just keep stirring, to dry it out a bit. stir constantly for 3 minutes or so, then start slowly adding the milk, bit by bit. add milk, let it combine, add more. etc. until all combined. remove from the heat.

stir the cheese and the egg yolks into the bechamel (that's the butter, flour and milk sauce.) once well combined, take the prosciutto and crumble it evenly into the ramekins. now beat the whites until they are stiff peaks. once shiny and stiff, take about 1/4 of the whites and mix them into the yolks/cheese/bechamel to lighten the mixture; then gently fold the rest of the whites in with the yolk mixture.

spoon the fully combined mixture into the ramekins, leaving them just under the top of the ramekin. place them on a baking sheet and then in the oven; immediately turn the heat down to 375. let them bake for 15 minutes or so, until they are risen and browned on top and starting to brown around the sides. voila! delicious, impressive, and way easier than they look.



i don't usually do the hey-look-it's-my-face! photos on here - i just feel weird about it for some reason. this isn't really about what i look like, i just like to feature my personal style, my food, my pretty blessed life. but today i couldn't get the light to pick up on the collar in this shirt, which is obviously the best part of it, so i had to suck it up and do some headshots. i figured it was a chance to show my little locket, anyway.





top: in god we trust (who, coincidentally, are having a spring launch party at their shop in greenpoint this saturday! come, maybe i'll see you there!)
skirt: thrifted
socks: american apparel
shoes: jeffrey campbell
necklace: ebay

all right. i'm going to tidy up the office a bit and then dive back in to wedding silliness. hope you're all enjoying your week!

xo audrey

one is sweet, one's for my feet

this morning was one of those awful, harumph-i'm-a-new-yorker mornings; it is absolutely freezing out, but of course i'm still wearing heels; i waited nearly a half hour for my first train, one of THREE i have to take to get to soho, which is probably a 3 or 4 mile trip from my apartment; every single one of the 3 trains i take was absolutely packed to the gills, which meant being smashed against strangers and kneed and elbowed all over my torso; and finally, when i got to work, i discovered my camera's battery was dead. UGH. fortunately i had a post saved for a time such as this.

i've been doing lots of wedding planning over the last week or so - well, i haven't figured out the big things, like where we're going on our honeymoon, or who's going to cater, but i DID manage to pick out a pair of shoes for the occasion. i knew i wanted wedges (so's not to poke holes in my in-law's lawn,) and i recently decided i wanted something red; a google search turned up these kate spade beauties, and i decided i had to have 'em.



we have narrowed down honeymoon destinations to somewhere hot & beachy, so i think these will come in quite handy then, too.

so i missed valentine's day on here by a few weeks (oops) -- sam and i kept it pretty low key, having a couple of friends over for dinner. sam made an amazing perch chowder (a chowder, in fact, that he caught all the fish for himself, through several inches of snow, the weekend before the holiday,)_ i put together a warm valentines-y salad (consisting primarily of goat cheese and roasted beets cut into heart shapes.) as it happened, we were all too full to eat dessert, so i made the one i'd been planning for that night later in the week when some friends were in town to visit.



white chocolate soufflé with blueberry whiskey compote

recipe adapted from epicurean

makes four large or 6-8 medium soufflés

ingredients:

3 ounces white chocolate, chopped
4 eggs, separated
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

preheat the oven to 400°F. butter 4 individual soufflé dishes, about 8 ounces each. lightly dust the bottom and sides of the dishes with sugar. melt the chocolate over barely simmering water; set aside to cool.

in a large bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. add the salt and cream of tartar, and beat until soft peaks form. gradually add 2 tablespoons of the sugar, beating until stiff, glossy peaks form. in a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick and pale in color. beat in the remaining 4 tablespoons sugar. stir in the vanilla and the melted chocolate. fold one-fourth of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it; fold this mixture into the remaining egg whites. spoon the soufflé mixture into the prepared dishes. bake for 10-12 minutes or until set and golden brown; if in doubt, give them an extra minute or two.

for the blueberry compote:

1 pint blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 T vanilla bean paste (or one vanilla bean)
about 1/2 cup of whiskey

combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer on low heat until the bite has gone out of the whiskey and the sugar has dissolved; use a wooden spoon to stir and mash the blueberries. use a spoon to make an indentation in the soufflés and pour in the compote. enjoy!

hopefully an outfit post to come, if i can figure out this camera business.

xo audrey

rainbow brite

hello everyone! i hope you're having a lovely saturday. i am most definitely spending mine inside, as new york has been drenched in a cold, weepy rain for the last 36 hours. i did venture out last night, though, and i got a little gussied up to do so.

i don't know what it is about the cold, rainy weather that makes people dress in blacks and browns. looking down the subway platform last night, i felt like a sore thumb in my tiffany blue coat and bright yellow shoes; we mourn winter in funeral gear and don't bring out the bright colors and fun patterns until it gets nice outside. i think this is all wrong. certainly, i was walking to the subway to go home last night with my teeth all a-chatter and my knees practically knocking together, but dressing in dark colors all the time is just too much of a bummer.



dress: anthropologie
silk jacket: guy baxter
knee highs: american apparel
shoes: shop in union square
belt: anthropologie
necklace: ebay
purse: kate spade

i think i'm going to have to start wearing my glasses more. i really should wear them every day but i am in that weird in between zone of people who really SHOULD wear glasses but can totally get by without them - i have trouble identifying friends in bars, for example, but it's not like i'm driving, or trying to copy notes from a blackboard, so i've just kind of gone without them. i haven't ever gotten used to the way the world looks through them and i find myself taking them off and putting them on constantly throughout the day, so i tend to just leave them behind. it is nice to be able to see things, though. i should probably make a habit of it.

so, sam has been a vegetarian for years but i have finally worn him down to the point that he's agreed to eat seafood. i went seafood insane this week as a result; i started sunday night with homemade lobster thermidor, a super old-fashioned meal that is incredibly decadent and not very good for you but oh so delicious. i got my recipe from the red cat cookbook - one i got as a gift from my little sister a few years ago and i HIGHLY recommend to any home chefs looking for some not-too-complicated but absolutely beautiful and delicious recipes. it's never let me down. (try the peach and pancetta risotto. do it.) i made many adjustments to the recipe, as i went grocery shopping for it from memory and without a shopping list; i kind of improvised along the way, and i think it turned out very nicely. i guess you could call this a poor-man's thermidor - i substituted dried herbs for fresh in many cases, and subbed brandy for cognac, etc. recipe follows.

poor man's lobster thermidor*

*relatively poor. it still ran us about $32 for two pound-and-a-half lobsters.

estimated prep time: 45 minutes
cook time: 10-15 minutes







2 1-1/2 lb lobsters
about a cup of cream
2 T olive oil
1/2 small sweet yellow onion, diced
1 T dried, ground fennel
8-10 button mushrooms, stems removed and sliced (i always just clean off mushrooms with a dry towel - i think my older sister told me that if you wash them in water, they soak it all in and get rubbery when you cook them.)
about 1/4 cup dry white wine (i used a pinot grigio)
2 T cheap, cheap brandy (or nicer stuff, or cognac)
about 1 t chopped fresh thyme
1 t dried tarragon
couple dashes of cayenne (to your taste)
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
1 T butter, melted
a couple handfuls of finely grated pecorino-romano cheese
juice of 1/2 lemon

preheat the oven to 400. bring the biggest pot of water you can find to boil. drop the lobsters in, LIVE, and cook 'em for about a minute to kill them. let them cool enough that you can handle them, then flip 'em tummy open and cut through the meat all the way (but not through the bottom shell, if you can help it.) spread them wide open. clean out the stuff that looks like it should be removed - there are clearly intestines and muck in there you wouldn't want to eat. when you're done it should be clean and white inside.



twist off the claws and drop them back in the boiling water for about 5 minutes; use a slotted spoon to scoop 'em out and set them aside to cool.

put the lobsters tummy-side up on a sheet pan and pour a little bit of the cream into them, just enough to fill the bottom of the shell. put them in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes, then let them cool elsewhere.

i used a nutcracker (and sam) to break open the claws and remove all the meat. remove it from the tail as well. cut all this meat into 1 inch dice. start the oil heating in the sauté pan and add the yellow onion, cooking it at a medium heat for a minute or two before adding the mushrooms. cook them until they start to get soft and then add the wine and brandy, and cook until most of the liquid is gone. add the cream and reduce until there is just a few tablespoons of liquid left. add the thyme, ground fennel, cayenne, and tarragon. add the lobster meat and lemon juice and season, cook for just a minute or two, then scoop the mixture into the cooled lobster shells. top with the cheese and the tablespoon of butter. bake for about 10 minutes, and bam. a most delicious meal.





all right. i've got beer to brew, chores to do, and i am suddenly itching to bake a layer cake today, so i've got to get a-running. lots of cooking happened this week, though, so more posts soon!

have a lovely evening!

xo audrey