World's Best Scones

These are really easy and don't take too much time. The kids love them, although they can get kind of crumbly which means "mess all over the floor". The mess is worth it, though. The young women I used to work with at church also seemed to appreciate these scones, since I would get requests for them fairly often! They especially liked them when I would add chocolate chips to the dough. I have to say, though, that my favorite addition is dried cranberries! YUM! Just be careful, much like pie crust, they don't taste as good if you overwork the dough.

World's Best Scones! From Scotland to the Savoy to the U.S.
by FriendlyFood at Allrecipes.com

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup white sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 Tablespoon milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or rubbing between your fingers until it is in pea sized lumps. Stir in the currants.

Mix together 1/2 cup milk and sour cream in a measuring cup. Pour all at once into the dry ingredients, and stir gently until well blended. Overworking the dough results in terrible scones!

With floured hands, pat scone dough into balls 2 to 3 inches across, depending on what size you want. Place onto a greased baking sheet, and flatten lightly. Let the scones barely touch each other.

Whisk together the egg and 1 tablespoon of milk. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. (Sprinkle with a little sugar if you want. It's yummy!) Let them rest for about 10 minutes.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops are golden brown, not deep brown. Break each scone apart, or slice in half. Serve with butter or clotted cream and a selection of jams - or even plain.

Gluten Free Banana Bread

I teach an early morning religion class we, in the LDS church, call Early Morning Seminary. I love to bake and take treats for my students, but one of my students has Celiac disease so I've had to expand my horizons a bit and have been toying around with gluten free recipes. The first attempt at muffins turned out okay. This student and my kids thought that they were good, but I used an All Purpose gluten free baking mix for those muffins and I thought that they were AWFUL! As I looked more closely at the ingredients in the mix one of the ingredients was garbanzo bean flour. That was what tasted so nasty to me. I strongly dislike garbanzo beans! So, I did some further hunting and have made this particular recipe a few times. We ALL like these. Although I make this recipe as muffins and not a loaf of bread. Just keep in mind that gluten free baking definitely has a taste to it that most of us are not used to. These are definitely worth a try, though, if you need a gluten free banana bread/muffin recipe!

Gluten Free Banana Bread
from Hodgson Mill

1/3 c Hodgson Mill Soy Flour (I use 'Sweet' White Sorghum Flour, not soy)
1/3 c Hodgson Mill Milled Flax Seed
1 1/3 c Hodgson Mill Brown Rice Flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2/3 c granulated sugar
1/3 c butter
2 eggs
1 c mashed ripe bananas
1/4 c buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine sugar and butter in large bowl until creamy.

Add eggs one at a time; mix well.

Stir in mashed bananas, buttermilk and vanilla extract.

Combine rice flour, soy flour, flax seed, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Stir dry ingredients into banana mixture and mix well.

Pour into greased loaf pan 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 -inch.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pan onto cooling rack.


Makes 1 loaf or about 10-1 oz. servings. (Or about 16-18 muffins, I usually half the recipe and it makes nine muffins.)

1/12 of recipe:
Makes 1 loaf. Each loaf: 180 calories; 1.78 g. dietary fiber; 28g. carbohydrates; 5 g. protein; 6 g. fat; 2 g. saturated fat; 44 mg. cholesterol; 213 mg. sodium.