Now this is a Scone.

Named "The Best Scone I Have Ever Had" by Cathy (Mom). 

It must have been the butter. . .or the shortening. . .or maybe it was the Half n' Half. 

I wanted to make scones this morning because my friend Jen was coming over for coffee. Jen and I used to be loyal patrons of just about every downtown Battle Creek coffee shop after our four day a week 7:15 AM Calculus class. Now we just get together for coffee whenever we can sans Calculus, which is a lot more fun. 

With less than a hour before Jen arrived I browsed Food Network for a five star "Easy" recipe. I found this recipe from Alton Brown, and it was great. My only modifications were using half n' half instead of cream and I added dried cherries and a handful of chocolate chips. Not the best idea for breakfast every morning, but a great brunch or breakfast treat for special occasions. 

P.S. Back 2 School tomorrow. :(

Scookies

What do you get when you cross a scone + a cookie = scookie, of course (not to be confused with Snooki). Alright, alright - I'm done with the lame jokes for today. 

The first morning of 2011 started out with Currant (Raisin) and Oat Scones from Martha's Everyday Food magazine. My Grandma received a subscription for this magazine for free last year with another subscription and has been passing them along to me ever since. It is a great little mag because most of the recipes can be easily modified to use less processed ingredients, whole grains, etc., and many of the recipes already utilize "clean" ingredients.  

It was indeed a "Healthy Start" as intended. The recipe is not available online yet but it called for half wheat/half all purpose flour, raisins, oats, a few tablespoons sugar, baking powder, an egg, a little bit of butter, and buttermilk. My modifications: currants subbed for raisins, 1/2% milk substituted for buttermilk , and the addition of half an orange worth of zest. 

They turned out a little flat. They look like cookies and unfortunately didn't taste like them, but for Scookies they were pretty great. In my limited experience with (coffee shop) scones they are generally so dry that they crumble when you look at them or heavy and sweet with icing (I don't get it). 

The end result was a moist, filling and tasty scone that I didn't regret eating before my mid-morning run. :D