Scones & Jam!

I have had large quantities of frozen fruits in the freezer for a long time now and decided it was time to use them up. I decided to make a strawberry sauce for a pound cake and ice cream dessert. I filled a pot with frozen strawberries, added some pomegranate syrup and balsamic vinegar (I don't like sickeningly sweet toppings for ice cream, I prefer a little tangy over something sweet). I reduced this down to a nice thick sauce and made a delicious layered dessert.

I was still left with about 10lbs of frozen strawberries to deal with. So in the pot they went and I made strawberry jam! I ended up with 3 quarts of jam and the kids were dying to try it. I did not use pectin, as I did not have it on hand, the jam is a bit thinner than store-bought jams so I felt we needed something a bit more substantial than toast for the jam. I've had a sweet tooth the past two days so when I started to ponder desserts using jam, scones came to mind.

I dug out my favorite scone recipe...this recipe is one I've used for years and absolutely adore! I don't care for traditional dry scones so this recipe is perfect as it makes the most moist, buttery and melt-in-your mouth scones.

1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 egg

In a small bowl, blend the sour cream and baking soda, and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture until just moistened.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. This is a moist dough so only use enough flour to keep from sticking to your work surface. Pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Using a pizza cutter, cut into 12 wedges, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. I also use cookie cutters, especially for Christmas morning breakfast fun, try not to overwork the dough when reshaping excess from cookie cutters.



Bake 18 - 22 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom. Tops may not appear to be browning so watch the bottoms.



Connor has become a bit leery of trying new foods this past year so we've created a reward system for him trying new foods. For every 10 new foods he tries, he can have anything he wants for dinner. Now, Connor being the wonderful kid he is, has not figured out that anything could be ice cream, cake, candy, etc. He asks for Frosted Mini Wheats almost every time. Anyway, sorry for the tangent. Connor was not so sure about eating the scone...even though I told him how much he'd love them. He replied with, "I don't want to taste the scum!" Then Lillee chimed in, "I want a scum, I love scum!" This is her response to anything that someone else may be getting and she feels she might miss out on.

I gave the kids the option of hot scone with butter and fresh canned strawberry jam or cinnamon sugar.


After one bite, they were all in love with the scum and begging for seconds within no time. Cinnamon sugar was the favorite amongst the kids, Al included, but I preferred the strawberry jam.