cherry

Corn Cherry Scones – The Bay Area Co-Op Staple

| For Friends & Family, Recipe

CornCherryScone007

I was introduced to corn cherry scones at the Arizmendi cooperative bakery in Oakland, and vowed to learn how to make them. Fortunately, I learned that this scone is quite the popular one at Bay Area co-ops, and blogger Nicholas Day has already done the legwork to adapt a recipe from The Cheese Board in Berkeley. It is my duty to now share this wonderful pastry with you!

NOTE: This is not your normal scone recipe. You will not be able to form a flat circle and cut into wedges. This dough spreads and flattens as it bakes, so you will need to form round balls. I learned this the hard way!

CornCherryScone004

Corn Cherry Scones
Makes 14 small round scones

  • 250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 133g (⅔ cup) sugar
  • 195g (1½ cups) cornmeal (medium or fine grind — I use about a 40:60 (medium:fine) ratio)
  • 227g (1 cup or 2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • ¾ cup dried sweet cherries (tart works too)
  • 1 cup buttermilk (higher the fat the better)
  • Sanding sugar

1. Heat the oven to 425° F (this works better for a convection oven — if you don’t have one, heat to 375° F). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Add the salt, sugar, and cornmeal and mix together.

3. With a pastry cutter or a couple of butter knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is the size of peas. Mix in the cherries, and then make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk. Mix briefly, just until the dough comes together; it should be stiff and still a little sticky. Let rest for 5 minutes.

4. Form the dough into balls about 2 inches in diameter and place them on the baking sheets a couple of inches apart. Brush with buttermilk, milk or cream and sprinkle generously with sanding sugar. Place in the oven and immediately turn down the temperature to 375° F (or keep at 375° F if that is what you pre-heated to). Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the scones are golden. Cool on a wire rack.

CornCherryScone009

0 comment

Wedding | Congrats Tiffany & Jon!

| Featured, Recipe, Weddings

A very belated post, but . . . This past July, Milo’s Bonbons had the honor of appearing on my cousin’s wedding menu! It was a whirlwind of a preparation for the wedding, but such a pleasure to cater desserts for Tiffany’s and Jon’s celebration.

My cousin asked for salted caramel chocolate cupcakes and lemon bars. Believe it or not, it was my first time making lemon bars! I probably should have experimented with that a little more, as I wasn’t perfectly happy with my crust to filling ratio, but it’s hard to go wrong with the flavor. I made both lemon and and lemon-cherry swirl bars as a nod to the wedding colors.

To give the desserts a little something extra, I decided to present the cupcakes and lemon bars on a display stand. I didn’t have enough chocolate on hand to make a chocolate stand and thought nougatine would be a better vehicle for my cousins’s wedding themes of red + gold and succulents. However, in retrospect, nougatine wasn’t the best choice for an outdoor wedding. The display held up, but it sure got shiny and sticky! Next time I’m sticking with using isomalt instead of sugar, or just using something material.

Here is the making of the nougatine, from toasting the nuts, to cooking the sugar and rolling out / cutting the pieces:

 
Nougatine
Makes about a half sheet pan

Ingredients:
  • 600g granulated sugar
  • 250g sliced almonds, lightly toasted and warm

Directions:

  1. Make a dry caramel (or wet, if you don’t want too dark a nougatine) with the sugar in a saucepan.
  2. Stir in the warm, sliced almonds.
  3. Immediately pour mixture onto a nonstick silicone mat and spread as thinly as possible.
  4. Place a second map on top of the caramel and roll out as thin and even as possible. Begin this step as soon as your can handle the heat.
  5. Remove the top map, carefully life the nougatine sheet and place on cutting board or oiled parchment paper. If mat sticks, then caramel is still too hot.
  6. Using a knife or cutting mold, cut desired shape, working quickly. If nougatine is too cold to cut or shape, place back on silicone mat and into a 350 degree oven for just long enough to soften.

I was quite limited by the size of my oven at that time, which couldn’t fit a full sheet pan, and thus limited the size of my cylinders and ovals. But, I’d like to think there was something “organic” or “artistic” about the pieces I built with 🙂 I added succulent trimmings to my nougatine leaves/petals to tie everything together:

1 Comment

Malted Chocolate Cupcakes – Baked Sundaes!

| Uncategorized


These malted chocolate cupcakes are topped with fresh whipped cream, sprinkles and a Maraschino cherry.

I also filled the cakes with a “Whoppers” buttercream (using ground Whoppers choclate malted milk balls) to add to the malt flavor (which unfortunately was largely masked in the cake itself). The buttercream filling adds a needed sweetness and moisture so that the cupcake doesn’t end up tasting like a black forest cherry cake. Which, would be interesting to try . . . hmmmmm . . .

0 comment