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Monday, February 14, 2011

Butter, Sunshine, Hearts, Pictures, Recipe


Our butter experiment turned out, but the kids get no credit for that. James was so excited to make butter like the Amish people do, but he was not so much on the work part. Also, he was disappointed that I couldn't manage to come up with a butter churn for our experiment. Instead, we used the jar/marble method. James shook the jar for approximately 47 seconds, while Katie shook it for a bit longer. She was a little too exuberant, though, and I had to take it away for fear she would launch the jar through the window! After about 25 minutes of shaking, all we had was whipped cream, so I cheated and put it in the blender. Wow! I have made butter once or twice before, but it is quite amazing to see how all the sudden the butter just appears. (Or, perhaps, I am easily amused.) And guess what? It tastes just like butter. Amazing.


In other news, we are spending this SUNNY, WARM day lounging around, playing outside, and eating all manner of Valentine's themed food. Having kids is a nice excuse to do all the fun Valentine's Day stuff. James declared, after eating the scones, that they were 'so, so good and I could each these for hours and hours!!' I'll post the recipe at the end.


Sun!! Happy, happy sun!


Look, its real dirt!!




The snow is starting to melt!!!


My littlest Valentine!



He liked the scones


Drawing pictures in a sunny spot


Another happy customer

Oatmeal Biscuit Scones

1 1/4 C. flour
1 C. rolled oats
1/4 C. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 C. (one stick) butter, chilled
1/2 C. dried cherries, chopped (or cranberries or chocolate chips)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 C. buttermilk (plus extra for brushing)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond flavoring
Sugar for sprinkling (I used raw sugar)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients together and cut in butter til coarse crumbs form. Stir in cherries. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk, vanilla and almond. Add to flour mixture and stir to combine. (I added a little extra buttermilk at this stage) Pat into a circle on a sheet of parchment paper or a greased pan. Cut into wedges (no need to separate them) and brush with buttermilk. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes, til lightly browned.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I LAUGHED SO HARD TEARS WERE RUNNING DOWN MY FACE. nOW i HAVE TO GO BLOW MY NOSE!!
Doc and I howled at James being to scared to try his trap! Too Funny!!

Love it!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I laughed pretty hard too. He is a big chicken, really. He is always trying to get Katie to go with him when he is scared :)

Dave, Krysten, Andrew, and Kira said...

ha - love it. I told the kids this summer will be a fun time of making homemade things and butter is definitely on the list!! Great post :)