bread « A Woman Sconed

Bread of the Month: Oiling up an herb-y scone

By rahoward, on June 30th, 2021

Sometimes, all the planets (or ingredients and time of the year) align in order to make the right recipe. I was recently thumbing through my original favorite scone book, “Biscuits and Scones,” (Clarkson N. Potter; 1988) by Elizabeth Alston. You would think I had made every recipe in the book, but far . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Oiling up an herb-y scone

Bread of the Month: Growing a garden-topped focaccia

By rahoward, on May 17th, 2021

During the last year or so, new kinds of gardens began appearing all over food social media. These garden-scapes have continued to grow and blossom, many of them becoming beautiful works of art. They are all edible…and their foundation? A bed of delicious, moist, dimpled, oily and flavorful focaccia, a favorite type of . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Growing a garden-topped focaccia

Bread of the Month: Tossing strawberries into muffins

By rahoward, on April 25th, 2021

One would assume my April making of Strawberry Banana Muffins came out of a seasonal bent. Strawberries, though found year-round, are often on the docket of spring-to-summer baking projects, coming into prominence as early as April in California. But, to be honest, my muffins came almost completely from a need to use up . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Tossing strawberries into muffins

Bread of the Month: Hopping away with cuteness

By rahoward, on April 4th, 2021

For me, the whole “back-of-the-bunny” (aka “bunny butt”) concept came early, at the kitchen table in marathon Easter egg coloring sessions the day before the big bunny arrived. We had our cups and bowls full of Paas egg dye and crayons to create the wax designs on some of the eggs. Our mom’s . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Hopping away with cuteness

Bread of the Month: Crowning cinnamon rolls

By rahoward, on February 15th, 2021

My mother’s basic yeast roll recipe, I knew, had the potential for versatility. From it, she herself made lofty loaves, giant fluffy dinner rolls, gooey cinnamon rolls and those irregularly shaped little planks — cut with a sharp knife from a huge bowlful of raised dough and deep-fried — that she called “skunks,” . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Crowning cinnamon rolls

Bread of the Month: Winning with banana bread

By rahoward, on January 31st, 2021

I give credit to the pandemic for a few good things One of them is a new appreciation of my sourdough starter, Petrie (yes, with an “e”). He has exceeded my expectations, as I have put him to the test, not just with basic bread recipes, but an unexpected array of other baked . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Winning with banana bread

Scone of the Month: Ending the year on a sourdough note

By rahoward, on December 28th, 2020

I , like many others who have been baking our way through the pandemic, have turned to my sourdough starter more than ever. Dear Petrie (yes, with an “e”), my beloved fellow of the fridge, offspring of “Spike” (my friend Elaine’s starter), has served me well for several years and especially these past . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Ending the year on a sourdough note

Scone of the Month: Speaking of sweet potatoes

By rahoward, on November 21st, 2020

Sometimes I am a rebel. When the rally cry is pumpkin spice, I start to think about sweet potatoes.

Or should I call them garnet yams, which is what the red-skinned, orange-fleshed creatures most of us call sweet potatoes really are (the jewel sweet potato is another version of the orange-interiored…for a great . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Speaking of sweet potatoes

Scone of the Month: ‘Souling’ a simple cake

By rahoward, on October 30th, 2020

Somewhere between light and dark, summer and autumn, the living and the dead, lies a season long honored and celebrated. As the veil between this world and the next thins, the days shorten into a period of long hours of darkness.

Somewhere between a cookie and scone, lies something called a “soul cake,” . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: ‘Souling’ a simple cake

Scone of the Month: Sweetening with fresh corn

By rahoward, on August 22nd, 2020

Come August, I almost always get a bout of “cornostalgia.” Never heard of it? I hadn’t either, since I just came up with the term that has me dreaming of rusty tassels, rustling long green leaves, shimmering gleams of blonde cornsilk covering kernels in shades of cream to gold.

I wanna make things . . . → Read More: Scone of the Month: Sweetening with fresh corn

“People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.”
--M.F.K. Fisher

"It was in a yellow limestone church in Stockdale, Kansas, a crossroads town, that I sat dreaming during summer Sunday sermons, not of heaven or hell, but of the good dinner to come."
--Clementine Paddleford