Breakfast in the Itty Bitty Kitchen

Good Morning!

I designed this marvelous post to show you how easy it is to bake for breakfast (without having to get up at the crack of dawn!). The entire preparation was done last night, and this morning I woke up at my usual time (7 AM), to get ready for work, and popped the scones in the oven just before hopping in the shower. Half an hour later, I was dressed and ready to go, and so were my scones!


Apple Cheddar Scones
By now, you may have caught on to the fact that I am obsessed with cheese. I also happen to love love love green apples. To me, there is nothing more refreshing, tart and exciting than the first bit of a really good granny smith, and it only gets better when paired with slices of super sharp Cheddar cheese. Since I've gotten in the habit of baking for my co-workers (and using them as guinea pigs), when I was brainstorming what to bring for them to try tomorrow, I thought "why not turn your favorite snack into a pastry?" Since I'm not quite confident enough in my baking ability to just haphazardly throw together scones, I sourced this recipe from a few different places, including one of my all time favorite blogs, Smitten Kitchen. Seriously guys, this woman is my culinary goddess. And she had a recipe for apple and Cheddar scones! It was like stumbling upon paradise. I mixed up her recipe a bit with one of the scone recipes from Flour (but not the one I used for Cheddar chive scones), and, well...here are the results!

Ingredients:
2 tart apples (Granny Smiths)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup sharp cheddar, shredded
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 eggs

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Peel and core apples, then cut into chunks. In hindsight, my chunks may have been a tiny bit small, so I would recommend making them about half an apple slice. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake about 20 minutes....until they look like this:

Sift/whisk (I whisked because I have no sifter) the flour, sugar, baking power and salt together.
In a separate bowl blend the butter, apple, cheese, cream and 1 of the eggs.

Am I crazy to think that these raw ingredients look amazing? Maybe its just the combo of cheese and butter...I know its going to be good!

Sprinkle the flour over the  cream/egg/cheese/apples/butter, and mix until the dough just comes together. It will actually come together in a crumble, and then you will need to knead it over a few times as it comes together into a mass.
Then flatten the dough into a round disc, about 1 1/4 inch thick. This was the point at which I wrapped the disc in saran wrap and put it in the freezer.

This morning, I simply unwrapped the dough, plopped it on a parchment lined baking sheet, and brushed the disc with the other egg.

Then, I cut it into 6 wedges, and stuck it in the oven.

They took about 35 minutes to cook at 375 degrees, but they were frozen solid, so if you choose to bake them immediately, I would take them out at 30 minutes.

And then...eat breakfast!!