It's all about the cream

I recently mentioned the amazing Strawberry Panna Cotta hubby and I enjoyed on a day trip to Sausalito, and the memory seems to be a strong one, 'cause I cannot seem to get it out of my mind.  It was creamy and delicately sweet, surprisingly thick yet not heavy or overly rich.  For a girl who misses UK double cream like I do, it was heaven on a spoon.  So it's no surprise that, upon returning home from our mini vacation I immediately began looking at recipes for this lovely italian custard.

I located a few recipes, but they were all pretty similar, so I decided to try the one in the Larousse Pâtissier app I recently downloaded onto my iPad (if you've ever met me in person, you probably know that I'm a huge Mac lover, and proud of it.  I have never owned a PC and never intend to, a decision that is reinforced every day when I'm forced to use one at work - but I'm getting off topic).  Panna Cotta is one of those great 15-minutes-or-less recipes that you can whip up without breaking a sweat.  That said, you do need to make it well in advance of your serve time, because it needs a few hours of chill and set time in the fridge before you serve it.  Great for those times, say, when you have friends coming for dinner tomorrow night and only a million things to do before then.  It's elegant and indulgent and takes very little effort - and who doesn't love that?  Oh, did I mention that you can make it in just about any flavour you want?

To take advantage of every last bit of summer fruit, I decided to make a flavoured panna cotta with ripe nectarines and a few leaves of fresh basil.  OK, so it's not exactly your most common flavour combination, but the flavour of fresh basil really does pair beautifully with the tart juiciness of nectarines.  Normally, the sugar would be mixed in with the cream and the mixture would be heated before blending in the gelatine and vanilla.  For this version, however, I sprinkled the sugar and a pinch of salt over the sliced fruit and basil, and allowed it to draw out the juices and amp up the flavours while I soaked the gelatine sheets, and warmed the cream.  From there, it's a very simple matter of gently mixing the three components together and pouring the mixture into small molds to chill and set. 

Now, about the gelatine.  Gelatine sheets can be very tricky to find where I live, whereas the envelopes of powdered gelatine is on every grocery store shelf.  You can certainly substitute the powdered kind for the sheets if you need, but then you need to sprinkle it over the cold cream before you heat it, so the gelatine can "bloom".  Personally, now that I've gotten my hands on sheet gelatine, there is no turning back.  Of course I have yet to try using agar-agar, the vegetarian-friendly seaweed based gelatine flakes, which are incredibly hard to find in town, and when I did manage to find some at a specialty store, I nearly fell over from sticker shock (I'll try it next time, though, and let you know the results).

As with most (if not all) desserts, really good quality vanilla and a pinch of salt are a must.  In a case like this where there are only a very few ingredients, you can't cheat on quality.  Fresh, ripe fruit, fresh basil leaves, and buy the very best heavy cream you can find.  Or better yet, make it with crème fraiche - the thick and velvety quality will make this dessert toe-curling-ly divine.  

Nectarine Basil Panna Cotta
serves 4

1-2 tsp neutral-flavoured vegetable oil, such as canola or grapeseed
2 sheets gelatine or 2 pkgs powdered gelatine
1 nectarine, skinned and chopped
5-6 leaves fresh basil, medium sized leaves
250ml (1 Cup) heavy cream or crème fraiche
50g (1/4 Cup) sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 whole vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Fill a medium bowl with cold water, and soak the gelatine sheets for about 10 minutes.  Conveniently, this is how much time you will need to prepare the rest of the recipe.
In a medium saucepan, place the chopped nectarine and the fresh basil - be sure to "bruise" or crush the leaves in order to release more of the flavour.  Sprinkle the sugar and salt over the fruit and allow it to sit for a couple of minutes.
Lightly brush a thin coating of oil into 4 small ramekins or cups that you will be using for molds.  Be sure to get into all the nooks and crannies, so that the custards will unmold properly.
Add the vanilla and cream to the saucepan with the fruit mixture, and place over medium low heat until the mixture is hot and steaming, but do not allow it to boil.  Remove the pan from heat and carefully fish out and discard the basil leaves.
Remove the gelatine sheets from the cold water, and gently whisk them into the hot cream mixture.  As soon as the gelatine has fully dissolved, pour the custard into the molds, evenly distributing the fruit amongst the dishes.
Transfer the dishes to the refrigerator for 4-6 hours, or overnight.
When ready to serve, carefully run a very thin-bladed knife around the edge of the ramekin, and turn the custard out onto a small plate.
Serve immediately.

Papa Screams for Ice Cream

I love to bring people joy with my food, it's one of my favourite things about cooking and baking.  This why I like bringing desserts when we get together with friends, or baking a cake for someone's birthday.  It's the reason I send treats to work with hubby, or take a pie over to a friends house "just because". While I don't necessarily need an occasion, Father's Day was as good an excuse as any, especially when Papa has a finely tuned sweet-tooth.

Two of Dad's favourite things are ice cream and everything caramel.  That meant deciding on what to make was pretty straightforward; Homemade Dulce de Leche Ice Cream.  For most people having cake and ice cream at a birthday, the ratio is about 2 cake to 1 ice cream.  For Dad it's more like 3 ice cream to 1 cake, and even then, he'll ask why you're being so stingy with the ice cream.  For his birthday one year, I even made him a home-made ice cream cake, something I imagine I'll do again soon, as his birthday is fast approaching.

Making ice cream from scratch is not all that difficult, but it is a lengthy process when you do it properly.  So be warned, when a sudden insatiable craving for ice cream hits, you'd better run to the store because this is not something that can just be whipped up in 20 minutes like a batch of cookies.  Nope - there's a lot of waiting and chilling time involved here.  Even more so because we're making French style ice cream.  Let me explain...

There are two basic types of ice cream (I'm not even going to get into gelatos, sorbets or semi-freddos today - that's another post entirely); Philadelphia style and French custard style ice cream.  Philadelphia ice cream is usually pretty simple and light, as it contains just cream, sugar and flavourings.  There's no cooking required in this kind of ice cream, but you're still going to have to wait for it to freeze up.  French custard style ice cream, on the other hand, needs to be cooked first. because it contains egg yolks, which give this kind of ice cream a rich taste and mouth feel, and it's also why some vanilla ice creams are a creamy yellow colour  instead of a pure, snowy white colour (that would be Philly style).  For French custard-style ice cream, you cook your custard first, then it needs time to cool down and chill in the fridge for a while.  Once it's chilled, then you can put it into your ice cream maker and let those wonderful ice crystals work their magic and incorporate air into the cream - which is what gives ice cream it's trademark texture.  When it comes out of the machine, it will be the consistency of soft-serve ice cream, so it still needs to be transferred into a container and put into the freezer for a few hours before it will become really firm.  I know - it sounds like an awful lot of work for something you can pick up at the corner store, but homemade ice cream tastes sooo much better, and you should be able to pronounce every ingredient it was made with.  Not the case with 90% of the stuff in the grocery store freezer.  Hopefully I haven't scared you out of trying this recipe, because it really is worth the effort, and more importantly, so is Dad.

To go from just regular, plain ol' vanilla ice cream (which I personally happen to love) to dulce de leche ice cream, all you need is a jar of dulce de leche.  OK, so it's not all that common for most people to keep a jar on hand, but in my fridge, there is almost always a jar of home-made caramel sauce on the shelf, right beside the jar of dark chocolate ganache (because home-made or not, all ice cream is better with a little bit of warmed sauce on top).  These days, you can also buy jars of dulce de leche at just about any grocery store, which comes in pretty handy for recipes like these ones.  To get a really caramelly ice cream, I took inspiration from David Lebovitz's recipe for Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream, and used dulce de leche in place of most of the sugar in the custard base.  Once that was done and the custard was cooked, chilled and finally had a run in the ice cream maker, all that was left do was to add a nice, thick swirl of pure dulce de leche through the finished product before it headed into it's rest in the freezer.  A few hours later, Dad was enjoying his Father's Day present and aside from several "mmmmmmm's", was not talking much.  It's a pretty good feeling to see someone who has done so much for you in your life, enjoying the little treat you made especially for them.  It's the least we can do for our dads, don't you think?

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
Makes approximately 1 litre of ice cream

Ingredients:

370ml     whole milk     1 1/2 Cups

370ml     whipping or heavy cream     1/12 Cups

15ml     vanilla     1 Tbsp

3g     salt     1/2 tsp

250ml     dulce de leche     2 1/4 Cups

4 egg yolks

30 g     granulated sugar     2 Tbsp

Directions:
Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl about 2/3 full with ice and cold water; set aside.  Get a smaller bowl and place a fine sieve over it and set aside. This is what the finished custard will be poured into.
In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, cream, vanilla, salt & 150ml (1 1/4 cups) of the dulce de leche.  Place over medium-low heat and gently stir the mixture periodically to help the caramel fully melt.  Do not allow the mixture to boil - you want it to be just barely simmering at it's hottest.
In a separate bowl, placed on a damp towl or non-skid mat, add the 4 egg yolks and the sugar.  Whisk vigorously until the mixture is pale yellow.  Continue whisking (quickly but not as vigourously) and carefully pour the 1/3 of the hot cream in a slow and steady stream into the egg mixture - this is called "tempering" (The trick to avoiding scrambled eggs here is to to never stop whisking, and to not add the hot cream too quickly).  Pour the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining cream and gently stir over medium-low heat until the custard just begins to thicken.  Again, you don't want the custard to boil, you only want it to thicken. 
Remove from heat and carefully pour the custard through the sieve and into the empty bowl. 
Immediately place the bowl into the ice bath, ensuring that no water gets into the custard. 
Cover the custard with plastic wrap and allow it to cool to room temperature before removing from the ice bath and placing in the fridge to chill for 2-4 hours until cold.
Follow the manufacturer's directions for churning the custard in the ice cream maker.  Once it has finished churning, the mixture should have more than doubled in volume and be soft-serve ice-cream consistency.  Working quickly, scrape the ice cream into a freezer-safe container.  Pour the remaining dulce de leche over the ice cream and swirl it throughout.  Transfer the ice cream to the freezer and allow to chill for several hours.  When the ice cream has fully frozen, all you need are spoons and a couple of bowls...

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.  I hope you were able to enjoy your favourite treat to celebrate.

Happy Baking!

Chocolate Blinis

For May's Chocolate With Francois challenge, Linda at Diva Weigh selected Chocolate Blinis. Traditionally, blinis are made with yeast and are served with caviar and sour cream, but in this case, they are leavened with whipped egg whites, and are definitely more sweet than savoury. Essentially, these are light, fluffy little pancakes, that are incredibly chocolatey.

The batter came together quite easily; melted chocolate and butter is stirred into an egg and sugar mixture, dry ingredients and ground hazelnuts are folded in, followed by whipped eggs whites. A short rest in the fridge and the blinis are ready to be cooked!

Cooking the blinis proved to be a bit more challenging than expected though. Even with the pan over the lowest flame, they had a tendency to burn, or if they weren't burnt, they were still too raw to flip. That picture up top?  Ya, that's the only blini that turned out presentable... that's why ther's only one on the plate.  After almost a dozen blinis turned out mishapened and burnt, I changed gears and started heating up the waffle baker. The waffle blinis turned out much much better. They were crisp and light and perfectly browned.

Since these were going to be a dessert, I whipped up a bit of cream to serve on top. Then inspiration called and I remembered the new flavour of jam that I had recently spied at the grocery store. Bonne Maman's Mandarin Jam is a lovely marmalade, yet it's not overly bitter like so many marmalades can be. A few tablespoons of this jam whipped into cream, turned out to be a stellar topping for these very chocolatey waffles.

The complete recipe can be found on Linda's blog DivaWeigh.

Happy Baking!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Fastest Dessert You WIll Ever Make

Recently, I received a flattering invite from the fabulous Mardi at Eat.Live.Travel.Write., asking me to join in the fun for Hay Hay its Donna Day.  Denise at ChezUs, who organizes this monthly challenge group) announced Mardi had won April's HHDD event, and therefore gets to host May's challenge, and she selected Blackberry Cheesecake Pots.  It wasn't a hard decision to join in the fun - I love cheesecake (or pretty much anything with cream cheese) and I love blackberries - it's a win-win situation!

I will admit, I've seen Donna Hay Magazine on the racks at the bookstore, but I've never picked one up.  I think it's because I've heard she's been referred to as the Aussie Martha Stewart, and, well, I'm kinda Martha'd out  (don't get me wrong, there are a tonne of wonderful ideas in her magazines, and I admire her shrewd business-sense, but I just wish she'd give more credit to her talented staff and ease up a bit).  Shame on me for judging Donna so quickly on such a comparison, inflicted on her by others.  I've learned my lesson though; now that I've tried out one of her recipes, I think I'll have to pick up a copy and give her a shot.  For one thing, this is definitely the quickest recipe I have ever made!  I swear, it takes longer to scoop out a bowl of ice cream - "I don't have time, so I'll just pick up a dessert at the grocery store" has now become nothing more than a weak excuse.  It's also delicious, and ridiculously versatile - you could make this recipe with just about any seasonal fruit you happen to have on hand.  In fact, once I discovered that this dessert took longer to read than in did to make, I proceeded to whip up another batch using the bright red strawberries I had on hand - and it was equally delicious.

So then I got to thinking, what if you didn't happen to have any fruit on hand?  Or what if you weren't in a fruit-dessert kinda mood?  Well, a quick trip to the grocery store for more cream cheese and I was ready to rock in my cheesecake pot extravaganza.

First up (actually third up at this point), was my no-fresh-fruit-on-hand scenario.  I added a 1/2 Cup (125g) of cherry jam to the cheesecake base mixture.  The result?  YUM.  It's absolutely delectable and has a much more intense fruit flavour than the fresh fruit versions.

Finally, I went ahead with the not-in-a-fruity-kind-of-mood scenario, and replaced the fresh fruit or jam with 1/2 Cup (125g) of Nutella.  Another tasty flavour option has been discovered.  mmmmmm....good stuff.  If you're one of the few people on the planet that don't love the taste of Nutella, you can switch it out for an equal amount of room temperature chocolate ganache, and you'll end up with a lovely 5-minute chocolate cheesecake.

So if you find yourself in a pinch because of last minute dinner guests, or you just want to enjoy a fabulous dessert that takes little to no effort, then this is the recipe for you.  You can whip this up as soon as you receive the phone call or walk through the door, and it can firm up in the fridge while you cook and enjoy your dinner.  Voilà!  Elegant dessert is served!

Oh - and if you really want to see how to turn this into a dessert that will wow your guests, head on over to Jamie's blog Life's A Feast... yes it took her more than 5 minutes to prepare, but it was definitely time well spent!

So here you go: simple, elegant, delicious and ridiculously quick to prepare:

Donna Hay's Name-Your-Flavour Cheesecake Pots
serves 4, but is very easily doubled

Ingredients:
1 Cup (250g) cream cheese
1/4 Cup (55g) superfine sugar (aka "berry sugar" in Canada)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 Cup (60ml) whipping cream
and 1/2 Cup (125g) of any one of the following:

• fresh or frozen berries of your choice
• jam or fruit preserves
• chocolate ganache (room temp)
• Nutella (room temp)

Directions:
In the bowl of a food processor, blend cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and cream together until smooth.  Add in about 1/2 of the berries and process until just crushed, using 1-second pulses.  Spoon into 4 small 1/2 cup dishes and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.  Serve with remaining fresh berries.

Give this recipe a try and let me know what flavour you made!

My "When Harry Met Sally" Cake

Harry: "The first time we met, we hated each other"

Sally: "No, you didn't hate me, I hated you.  The second time we met, you didn't even remember me."

Harry: "I did too!  I remembered you.  The third time we met, we became friends"

Sally: "We were friends for a long time"

Harry: "And then we weren't"

Sally: "And then we fell in love.  Three months later, we got married"

Harry: "Ya, it only took three months"

Sally: "Twelve years and three months"

Harry: "We had this... we had a really wonderful wedding"

Sally:  "It was... it really was a (laughing) beautiful wedding"

Harry:  "We had this enormous coconut cake"
Sally:  "Huge coconut cake, with the tiers, and there was this, this very rich chocolate sauce on the side"
Harry: "Right, 'cause not everyone likes it on the cake, 'cause it makes it very soggy"
Sally:  "Particularly the coconut, soaks up a lot of that stuff, so you really... it's important to keep it on the side"
Harry:  "Right."

I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this remembers this movie - after all, When Harry Met Sally is the iconic Nora Ephron romantic comedy, the one that really turned her into a household name before she went on to write Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail.  There are certainly a number of memorable scenes, but the mental imagery of their enormous tiered wedding cake: moist coconut cake with rich chocolate sauce on the side - that stuck with me for years.  To the point where, years later, when I finally came across a recipe for a decent coconut cake, I knew I absolutely had to serve it with a nice rich chocolate ganache.

Most coconut cake recipes I come across are little more than a white cake with a sticky frosting covered in shredded coconut.  Such a combination does not a coconut cake make.  After all, a white cake covered in chocolate icing is not a chocolate cake, so how come coconut cake gets to break the rules?   So I was very excited when, years ago, I came across a recipe for a coconut cake, made with {gasp!} actual coconut!  Not just shredded coconut, but coconut milk too!  You can imagine my surprise, and sure enough, when I gave it a try, and it was a pretty damn good cake.  It had to be if it was going to live up to the imagery from When Harry Met Sally.  Over the years, I have fine-tuned that recipe here and there, changing up the frosting from a too-sweet Italian meringue to a delicately flavoured Coconut Cream Icing, playing around with different syrups for the sponge, and adding the above-mentioned chocolate sauce.  All of this tweaking has brought me to the perfected coconut dessert I share with you today.  In fact, this cake is so good, it has become my signature dish, and I have even been hired to bake this for various special occasions,  and birthdays - for people who say they don't like cake, yet apparently love this coconut cake, and even a wedding (naturally).  My friend Shannon loves this cake so much, that when I presented her with her gift last Christmas, a lovely cake plate and a coupon for a cake of her choice for any occasion, she shouted out "Coconut Cake!" before I could even finish telling her what the gift was.  And it's at her request that I make this cake again tonight.  If I want wow factor, or a dessert with nice summery flavours, this is the cake I make.

Normally, I make this cake in round cake pans, and go for a traditional layer cake presentation, however, given the type of event this was being served at, I decided to go for an elegant loaf style cake.  To do this, I baked the cake in two 8x8 square pans, then trimmed the crust edges from the cakes, and split each cake in half, so that I ended up with a nice long, rectangular cake 2-layer that is easier to cut and serve. Serving it with a liquid chocolate sauce was also going to be a challenge for this event, so I made the ganache well ahead of time and allowed it to chill in the refrigerator while I baked.  When it came time to assemble the cake,  I added a generous layer of ganache between the cake layers, along with some of the frosting.  This meant that I had a nice chocolatey truffle-type layer of chocolate sauce built right into the cake, and I can't think of a reason why that would be a bad thing.

Fluffy Coconut Layer Cake with Chocolate Ganache On The Side
Cake adapted from Williams-Sonoma Baking 


Cake
2 1/4 Cups (280g) cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 Cup (186g) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 Cups (301g) sugar
3 large eggs, separated, at room temp
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Cup (250ml) coconut milk (you can use "light" coconut milk, but really, why bother at this point?)
1 tsp coconut extract
1 Cup (125g) shredded sweetened coconut

6-8 Tbsp (90-120ml) Mailbu coconut rum or coconut syrup

Coconut Cream Icing

Copied from Sugar by Anna Olson

2 Cups (500ml) whipping cream
1/2 Cup (100g) confectioner's sugar
4 tsp (20g) cornstarch
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp coconut extract
1 1/2 Cups (150g) sweetened flaked coconut

Coconut- flavoured Ganache  aka "Very Rich Chocolate Sauce"
1 Cup (250 ml) heavy cream
1 Cup (250 g) dark chocolate, chopped (or, if you are lazy like me, dip into your enormous stash of Callebaut callets)
2 Tbsp Malibu Coconut Rum (or 1 tsp coconut extract)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350˚F and place oven rack in centre position.  Prepare two 9-inch round cake pans.

In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
In bowl of mixer, combine butter and sugar, beat on medium-high until mixture is light in colour and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, vanilla and coconut extract. Remove the bowl from the mixer.
Gently fold in 1/3 of the dry ingredients until almost fully incorporated. Fold in 1/2 of the coconut milk. Fold in another 1/3 of the dry ingredients, followed by the remaining coconut milk. Gently fold in the final 1/3 of dry ingredients and the shredded coconut until just incorporated.  Take care not to stir too vigorously, or the cake will be tough. Transfer batter to a clean, large bowl.

In clean mixer bowl, using a balloon whisk, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form (peaks should fall over gently when the whisk is lifted).
Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, just until no white streaks remain. Divide batter evenly between 2 prepared baking pans. Bake the cake layers until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out cleanly, about 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let them cool in the pans for about 3 minutes. Using wire rack, invert both layers and remove pans. Let cool completely on the racks, covered by a clean slightly damp kitchen towel so they do not dry out.

To prepare the Coconut Cream Icing: In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, corn starch, salt and 1/4 Cup (50ml) of the whipping cream.  Bring mixture to a boil, over medium-high heat, while stirring continuously.  Immediately transfer the hot mixture to a small bowl.  Gently stir in the vanilla and coconut extracts, and set aside to cool to room temperature.
In a clean mixer bowl, whip cream to very soft peaks.  With the mixer running on medium speed, slowly pour in the cooled sugar starch mixture.  Turn the mixer up to medium high speed until the mixture is well combined, but be careful not to over-whip.  Gently fold 2/3 of the coconut into the cream.

To assemble and decorate the cake:
Gently place one cake layer on cake plate and brush layer with Malibu rum or coconut syrup.  (If going with the truffle-like layer of chocolate as I did for this occasion, now is the time to apply it).  Evenly spread a generous amount of the coconut cream icing onto the bottom cake layer. Top with the second cake layer, and brush layer with remaining Malibu or syrup.  Evenly coat entire cake with remaining coconut cream, and garnish with remaining coconut.  Chill until ready to serve.

Serve chilled with warm chocolate ganache.  Stand back and graciously accept the ooh's, ahh's and yumm's.

Gifts from the Tropics & Ginger Cream Scones

On Sunday, my parents returned from their annual holiday in Hawaii.  Every winter for more than 20 years now, they leave the cold, bleak winters of Alberta for a month of sun and sand in Oahu.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be some years, to leave the ocean and warm breezes of Hawaii and return to bundling up in layers and shoveling snow until spring arrives.  I would hope that the month of reprieve from the cold makes the last few months of winter that much easier to bear.


When she returned home this year, my mom brought me a few little treats in the form of flavourful syrups.  Hawaiian Ginger syrup, Thai Ginger syrup and Coconut syrup - tasty treats for me to play with in the kitchen.  Perhaps I should have waited a few days for my Rice Pudding experiment - guess I'll just have to try again and see if I can improve the results - but that will have to wait for another day.  Being short on time this morning, I decided to try out one of my new ingredients in a much quicker recipe...


Cream Scones are incredibly simple to make and taste like home.  A friend made these for us when we arrived in London for a visit, served up with strawberry jam and double cream (the likes of which I have yet to taste again outside of the UK).  I myself make these at least once a month and enjoy them with a nice hot cup of coffee on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  Omit the ginger and you have a simple biscuit that is still elegant enough to be served as dessert, split open and served with fresh berries and softly whipped cream.  Add some dried currants or cranberries to the dough and you won't need a thing to serve with them, they're delicious and flavourful.  The trick is to work the dough as little as possible once you add the cream and you will be rewarded with scones that are light and fluffy and delectable.  Overwork that dough and you'll end up with something you should probably use as a door-stop.  In this case, the candied ginger makes them as much a treat as any cookie would be.

Ginger Cream  Scones
(makes 8 scones)


2 Cups (284 g) all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp (16 g) baking powder
3 Tbsp (45 g) sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 Cup (60 g) crystallized ginger, minced
5 Tbsp (71 g) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
1 Cup (240 ml) heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
    ~~~
3 Tbsp heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp ginger syrup
sugar


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425F and move rack to middle position in oven.
2. In the bowl of a food processor, (you can also make these by hand in a large bowl), blend together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and ginger.
3. Add in the butter pieces and blend with three or four 1-second pulses (or cut the butter in by hand as you would for pie dough).
4. Pour in the cream and vanilla and pulse three more times, until the cream is just barely incorporated into the flour mixture (you will still have some pockets of dry ingredients).
5. Turn the mixture out onto a clean countertop and gently knead by hand just until the dough comes together in one cohesive ball - remember not to overwork it!   Flatten the dough out into a rectangle or circle about 3/4 inch thick.  Cut into equal sized pieces and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
In a small bowl, mix together the 3 Tbsp cream and syrup.  Brush mixture onto each of the raw scones and then sprinkle them with sugar.  Place in oven for 11-15 minutes, until puffy and the tops are just golden brown around the edges.  Serve when still warm from the oven.


NOTE: Because these are so simple, they don't keep long.  If you wish to make a smaller batch, follow steps 1 through 3 as above.  Take half of the flour and butter mixture, cover and refrigerate for use at a later date.  This mixture will keep for up to 5 days.  To the remaining half of the mixture, add 1/2 Cup of cream and 1/2 tsp of vanilla and prepare as as directed.  Ditto for the "leftover" batch, when you are ready to make them.