Mother's Day

This weekend Brett and I went up to Orange County to hang out with my Mom. Not only were we celebrating Mother’s Day, but we were also having a birthday celebration for Brett and me (our birthdays are this coming week!) So it was a great weekend of celebrating. I wanted to make my mom some scones for Mother’s Day breakfast, because she’s talked about them before and I know that she likes them. However, I have never had them or made them. I looked in my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook and there were a couple of recipes for scones, but nothing that really appealed to me. So I had almost scratched the idea of scones when fate intervened in the form of Ina Garten. I turned on The Barefoot Contessa on a whim and of course she was making Cranberry Orange Scones. It was perfect! What was even better was that my mom had all of the ingredients on hand and we didn’t have to run to the store.

I mixed everything in the stand mixer but when it came time for the dried cranberries, they kind of all clumped in the bottom. I got out a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and the dough was so thick and gooey that the handle just snapped right off in the bowl. Oops! I’ve never done that before! Thank goodness it was an old cheap plastic one and not a nice one! Anyway, I got the dough onto a heavily floured surface (with some difficulty due to the stickiness) and started rolling. I cut little 3 inch rounds, brushed a quick egg wash on, and let them bake.

They turned out beautifully! In our family, we always eat off the red plate on our birthdays or on any day when someone is extra special. So Brett and I took turns using it on Saturday and Mom used it today. The red plate certainly got a workout this weekend. The scones tasted good. I especially liked the bites with lots of cranberries. They were a little on the dry side, but I’m not sure what scones are supposed to be like since I have never had them before. All I know is that Mom seemed to like them, and that’s all that matters on Mother’s Day!