Fire-Roasted Scones

If you would walk into our house today, or probably for the next couple days, you would notice a distinct smokey odor. And it's not the nice, pleasant smell from a candle or campfire, it's the gross, nasty smell when you burn something you're not supposed to. Fortunately nothing important burned and by no means was anyone hurt, but our neighbors I'm sure are wondering why our fire alarms keep ringing and why we keep standing outside our back door staring into our house.

What happened you want to know? Well, it started on Saturday night when my 3 amazing boys made a funny cake for me for Mother's Day morning but had a little "incident" (we think the baking powder may have been quadroupled) that involved the 2 pies completely erupting into a huge volcano of cake batter on the oven floor. (We did eat the pie Sunday morning and it was actually still good...pretty much only chocolate left because all the cakey part overflowed, but still very tasty.) So that was smoke occurance #1 - huge amounts of dark black smoke pouring out all the burners with all 3 of our fans blowing on high to push it out the back door.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I remembered that I had to make something for our Bible Study brunch Tuesday morning (today). Granted, this next episode is all my fault because I knew I hadn't cleaned the oven yet from the explosion, but I was sure that from all the smoke and burning on Sat night, that it had pretty much burnt off and would be fine to bake in. So this was my afternoon:

4:30 - Mitch calls and says he's on the way home (1 hour commute); Caleb and I started making scones; Noah was still asleep

4:45 - preheat the oven to 425; get Noah up from his nap; give them quick snacks; finish the scones; all while trying to think of what we can have for dinner as I have no ideas yet

5:00 - put scones in oven; get boys ready to go play outside

5:05 - start smelling smoke, look at oven and see that the inside of my oven is completely on fire with big flames everywhere

5:06 - try not to panic and think about what I'm supposed to do...I send the boys outside (with Caleb telling me to "stop pushing him"), debate between baking soda and water and decide to go with water, grab a pitcher full of water and throw it on the flames; fire goes out, take scones out, decide they don't look too bad considering the circumstances, and put them back in to bake for the last 5 minutes.

5:10 - go upstairs and grab 2 big fans, open all windows and doors and start airing

5:15 - do the mountain load of dishes that had accumulated all afternoon while standing in a whirlwind of air

5:20 - find leftover pepperoni/tomato pasta salad in fridge from Sunday and throw it in a pot and heat it up along with some frozen peas (dinner!)

5:30 - the house is fairly aired out; stop fans and return them to upstairs, close some windows, set table and greet Mitch at the door with dinner on the table, dishes done, boys playing nicely outside, scones cooling and no more visible smoke! Not to brag, but I've gotta say that was a pretty impressive hour:)

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This batch of scones was obviously not the best tasting, but the recipe is really good if it's made in normal conditions!

Hazelnut Chip Scones with Spiced Butter

4 c. flour

3 T. sugar

4 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. cream of tartar

3/4 c. COLD butter

1 egg, separated

1 1/2 c. refrigerated hazelnut nondairy creamer

1 1/2 c. mini semisweet chips

additional sugar

Combine first 5 ingredients. Cut in butter until crumbly. Whisk egg yolk and creamer; add to dry ingredients until just moistened. Stir in choc chips. Turn onto floured surface; knead 10 times. Divide dough in quarters. Pat each portion into a 7 inch circle and place on greased baking sheet; cut each into 8 wedges (should have 32 wedges). Beat egg white and brush over dough. Sprinkle with additional sugar. Bake at 425 for 15-18 min or until golden brown.

Serve with Spiced Butter: 1/2 c. butter (soft), 3 t. brown sugar, 1/4 t. cinnamon, 1/4 t. allspice, 1/8 t. nutmeg. Combine all and beat until smooth.

*You can also try substituting other things - i.e. in this batch I had no choc chips so I used craisins, and the only creamer I had was chocolate eclair so you can mix and match different flavors if you're daring (or just don't have the needed ingredients - which was my situation)

**This recipe came from our pastor's wife, Sharon, who is an excellent baker - just an fyi that it really is a good recipe to use as long as you don't chargrill them:)