This Baking Blog is Moving... and the First Scone Recipe Is Already Posted!

In the spirit of posting more frequently, Justin and I are merging That Would Be Lovely with our Foodspiration blog. What does that mean?

1. All of my future baking posts including one that I just wrote tonight on the cream scone recipe will now be at www.foodspiration.com

2. We will be posting 2 to 3 times a week instead of 1 to 2.

3. You should change your link from this blog to www.foodspiration.com

After all, baking is inspirational too! Please click over...I've got so many ideas in the queue: all three scone recipes, pavlovas, and did anyone see this month's Martha Stewart Living?? It's all about cupcakes- hooray! I'm definitely making cupcakes.

Thanks for your patience with this changeover!!

Coming Soon: In Search of the Perfect Scone... for Jam!

Mmm...we just came into some delicious spreadable fruit:

• Summer Sweet Peach & Rose Geranium Conserve from June Taylor Jams
  
• Blenheim Apricot Jam from We Love Jam
• Apple Butter which was a homemade gift from Nonna C
• Ginger Pear Preserve which also was a homemade gift from Nonna C

And of course, I need something delicious to spread it on! So I am looking for the perfect scone recipe that is slightly crumbly, flavorful but plain enough to deserve one of these lovely spreads. If you have a favorite recipe, please send it my way...in the meantime, I'm considering:

• Mummy's Sweet White Scones ( with milk)
  

• Cream Scones ( with heavy cream)
  

• Mary Hearty Bye's Scottish Scones ( with buttermilk)
  

Chicken and Mitten Cookies

After Mama A and Little I left, I decided to decorate some of the chicken and mitten cookies a bit more elaborately. First, a few FAQs:


Q: Why chickens and mittens?
A: Because those are two cookie cutters that I have been meaning to try out...they have nothing to do with each other besides that.


Q: What does elaborately mean?
A: It means 5 colors or frosting: white, red, yellow, blue, green and black and two consistencies: outline- thicker for outlining and flow- to flood the cookie with frosting.

Which all equals- a very messy kitchen!

Q: You can buy black food coloring?
A: Yes, I highly recommend the gel paste food colorings because they are extremely concentrated and don't change the viscosity of your frosting as much. I have a gajillion colors thanks to Mama A who hit a sale at Sur La Table.

And here are the results:

Chickens... (some in more formal attire and wearing pearls)


Mittens...
Chickens and Mittens...

Just Mittens...
My buffet is full of mittens and chickens...to be distributed amongst my neighbors.

As you can see, I am still in holiday mode...and I will be until January 10th when the Boy Scouts come to pick up our tree. Christmas felt too short this year...plus I like to leave the Christmas stuff up until Epiphany which is January 6th.

Look What Little Hands Can Do!- A "First Cookie Decorating" Experience

Well, I really wanted to do some low-key baking that wasn't for a party or work but just for me. It worked out really great because my friend,Mama A, brought her daughter, Little I, over to help with the cookie decorating! It was Little I's first time decorating cookies. Good thing Mama A brought their aprons!

First Mama A showed Little I how to put just a few sprinkles...

I baked the cookies ahead of time and used a royal frosting recipe that uses meringue powder. Raw egg whites are traditionally used but you can find meringue powder at Michael's to use instead (which won't have the salmonella risk). The icing will harden which makes it easy to stack these cookies once they are dry.

We had sprinkles, sanding sugar, and even edible glitter to put on these cookies! Mama A got their aprons at Anthropologie- on sale after Christmas! So cute!

Little I caught on pretty quickly and took over! She definitely had a vision for many of these cookies- which colors and sprinkles went on which cookie.

There's no time for laughing, Mama A, this is serious stuff.

Ok, maybe a little laughing...Little I was amazingly gifted at sprinkling cookies. Perhaps a future Martha in the making???

Voila! The results...And how did they taste? To quote Little I, "Crunchy!" Well, this was so much fun...there will definitely be more baking projects with Mama A and Little I in the near future!