sweet cream icing flowing down & a good recipe for scones

"What do horrible Richard Harris songs and humiliation have to do with scones, a logical person might ask?  Absolutely nothing."

This BAD baking experience offers the perfect excuse for me to share a great recipe, an easy recipe -- one that will not fail. 

There are two things about which we will never, ever speak again.  One is “Chocolate Ganache-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Malt Swiss Meringue Frosting” and the other is the song, “MacArthur Park”.

Ah, many of you clever fans of 60’s music are smiling and can already guess the end of this story.

I made these lovely cupcakes Friday evening for my daughter’s Girl Scout Troop Easter Egg Hunt.  Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla Swiss meringue frosting.  Pink sugar sprinkles on top.

As a repeat performance I decided to make the same cupcakes, but put in a chocolate ganache filling and top them with a chocolate malt Swiss meringue for a neighborhood potluck picnic and Easter Egg hunt the next Saturday.  Somehow, I’m not sure exactly what happened – I’m pretty sure it was some kind of time warp that compressed time into 15 minutes but the cupcakes were actually in the oven for well over three hours – the cupcakes smelled a little burned.  I soldiered on, remembering the previous night’s cupcakes and how they were Cupcake Perfection.

I made the Swiss Meringue, a thirty minute ordeal, but so worth the effort.  Light and fluffy.  Not too sweet.  A melt in your mouth smooth buttercream.  I topped the cupcakes.  I placed them in a clear cupcake holder I bought from my nearby Publix bakery.  I took them to the picnic.

I never tasted them.  “Rookie mistake” you’re thinking.  Over-confident, pride-goeth-before- the-fall smug stupidity.

The cupcakes sat outside in the sun for over an hour.  The ambient temperature was a comfortable, oh probably 64 degrees.  Little did I know that those clear cupcake holders sitting in the sun can reach a Thermal Death Point for Swiss meringue frosting in waaaaaay less time than it takes to run three age-bracketed egg hunts.

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(* Handy tip for survivalists:  those clear cupcake holders can be used as solar ovens to bake your favorite Post Zombie Apocalypse Cupcakes.)

As my neighbors proceeded down the line of pot-luck offerings, picking out chicken tenders and pasta salad, at the end they were greeted by a cupcake holder filled with weird-looking -- frightening and unsavory, even -- soupy melted cupcakes.  Only the very throw-caution-to-the-wind among us --loyal family members and a couple of friends -- took one.  Thankfully there were other desserts available.

At the end of the picnic, I gathered my container and brought it home and finally tasted a cupcake.  Some of the “burned smell” mystery was solved.  There, at the bottom of the cupcake was a chocolate charcoal layer that must have as one point in time been my ganache.  It was completely inedible.

This disaster rivals only the epic Fondue Fire of 2003 in its humiliation.

And Richard Harris can moan and bleat about “sweet cream icing flowing down” and lament the loss of cake recipes and cakes left in the rain, but unless he was actually eating a Melted Swiss Meringue Chocolate Charcoal Cupcake as he was singing the song (which might explain a lot), he really didn't have much to be sad about.   And we will never speak of any of  this ever again.

So here's a great recipe -- easy and no-fail -- for my scones.  What do horrible Richard Harris songs and humiliation have to do with scones, a logical person might ask?  Absolutely nothing.  Except if you make these humble little scones, you will redeem the entirety of your failed baking life along with healing the scars of a lifetime of embattled, soul-crushing humiliation.  Yes, that.  

Okay, that was a stretch. But try these scones, anyway.  Every time I make them, I'm asked for the recipe.  So that's gotta be worth something.

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Cinnamon and Pecan Scones

Ingredients
2 cups freshly milled organic whole wheat flour (or store-bought whole wheat flour)
1 cup unbleached organic plain flour
1 T baking powder (non-aluminum)
2 t ground cinnamon
3/4 t salt
3/4 c cold organic unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 c chopped pecans
1 egg (organic & pastured if possible)
1 cup organic whipping cream
1 t vanilla extract

topping
2 T organic whipping cream
2 T cinnamon sugar (I use Trader Joes)

1 Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2 Place first 5 ingredients in a food processor and pulse several times to  mix.  Add butter and pulse until crumbly.  Add pecans and pulse again 2 - 4 times. Pour this mixture into a large bowl.

3 In a smaller bowl, whisk together egg, whipping cream and vanilla.  Pour into dry mixture and stir with a large spoon or spatula until it forms a shaggy dough. Add a little more cream if needed.

4 Using a medium-sized ice-cream style scoop, scoop dough into mounds onto parchment paper.  This will make around 16 - 18 scones.  Brush tops with whipping cream and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

5 Bake for 16 - 18 minutes until lightly browned on top.  I like to take the temperature of breads.  If you do this, an instant-read thermometer should read about 195 - 200 degrees.

this recipe is adapted from Southern Living's The Half-Hour Hostess by Rebecca Kracke Gordon