Cream cheese walnut scones

 Comfort food for a lazy morning.  But to keep things sensible, I halved the original recipe.

For four scones, here's what I used:

    1½ 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
    3/4 cup (minus 1 heaping tablespoon) white whole wheat flour
    1 heaping tablespoon coffee flour
    3/4 teaspoon baking powder
    1/4 teaspoon baking soda
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
    2 tablespoons granulated sugar
    4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
    2½ ounces cream cheese, chilled and cut into small pieces
    1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk, chilled
    1/2 large egg, cold
    1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Cream Cheese Frosting
    1½ ounces cream cheese, softened
    1/2 cup powdered sugar (confectioners' sugar)
    1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
    1/2 to 1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Lightly grease a baking sheet.  (Tip:  Chill the bowl and any utensils you will be using in the refrigerator before making the scones.)  In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar; whisk together to mix.  With a pastry blender or two knives, cut chilled butter and chilled cream cheese into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  In a small bowl, stir the chilled buttermilk and cold egg together.  Add the liquid mixture and walnuts to the flour mixture; stir just until mixed.  The dough will be stiff and slightly sticky.  If necessary, turn the mixture onto a lightly floured board and knead gently until the flour is combined.  Do not over-knead as this will make a tougher scone.  On a lightly floured surface, shape and pat the dough into a circle or rectangle about 3/4 inch thick.  Cut into wedges, squares or circles with a floured knife and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.  (Tip:  dip the edges of the cutter in flour to prevent the dough from sticking.  Do not pat the edges of the scone down; instead leave the cuts as sharp as possible to allow the scones to rise in layers.)  Bake 12 to 20 minutes or until the scones are lightly browned (depending on the size of your scones).  A good check is to use an instant digital thermometer to test your scones.  The temperature of the scones should be at 200 degrees F. when done.  Remove scones from baking sheets and cool on wire racks.

I used half whole wheat flour and some coffee flour, which should have sucked up more moisture, and yet the dough was pretty wet.  They weren’t going to be “flaky”.  Then I baked them 10 minutes too long, but surprisingly they were fine.  I guess because they were too wet.

I was undecided on the cinnamon, whether to add it or not.  There's something to be said for not flavoring everything and just letting the basic ingredients shine.  They were fine with it, and I'm sure they'd be fine without, perhaps with a more prominent walnut flavor.

Conclusion:  These were delicious, but they were more like muffins. They were almost like little iced cakes, but not that sweet.

Recipe:   Frosted Cream Cheese Walnut Scones via What's Cooking America

Sweet Potato Pecan Pudding Cake

They're lying.  All the people who posted photos of this cake are lying.  You can't dump 2 cups of sweet potato into a regular cake recipe and have it turn out light and fluffy like their photos show.  What you get is what's in that photo above:  a cross between cake and bread pudding.  Kitchen Nostalgia even acknowledged, "The cake was very moist, actually more like pudding than regular cake. I happen to like that, but I know some of my readers would certainly comment on this."  Yet her picture is of a turmeric-colored cake with a little topping.  Not the same recipe.

It's not a bad recipe, necessarily, but it's not "cake" as we're used to having, and as all those people presented.  Especially when they're touting it as "cinnamon roll" cake, further indicating it should be airy.

This turned out fine--- people snarfed it down--- but it certainly didn't come out as desired.  And after comparing the original recipe for plain cinnamon roll cake and this one, I feel confident it wasn't because of my changes.  I had wanted to use half whole wheat flour but didn't have any, so I substituted some coffee flour and some wheat bran, and I changed up the directions a little to be more conventional.  I also halved the recipe, but baked it in a pan that was appropriately sized.

My additions are in strikeout and italics.  Here's what I used:

1 ½ ¼ cups flour 

2 tablespoons coffee flour

2 tablespoons wheat bran

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup cooked sweet potatoes

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup milk

Topping:

1/2 cup butter, softened (see note)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1½ teaspoons cinnamon 

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2½ tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 10x7.5-inch baking pan.  Sift together the flours, bran, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt.  In a medium mixing bowl, beat sweet potatoes with the sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined, then add the melted butter and mix until thoroughly blended and smooth. Add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the milk and mixing between additions. Pour batter into prepared pan. Mix all the topping ingredients together until well combined.  Drop evenly over the batter and swirl with a knife. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake cake for 30 - 40 minutes.

I checked it at 25 minutes-- still raw.  At 32 minutes, it had started to swell in the middle.  Removed at 38 minutes.  Skewer came out clean and it had puffed fairly evenly and had started to pull away from the sides, but there was a lot of melted butter and syrup running around the pan.  The syrup firmed up and the butter was absorbed as the cake cooled.

Note:  I'd be inclined to halve the amount of butter in the topping.  It seemed excessive, literally being more like a seasoned butter than a topping.

Conclusion:  The taste was good on this, despite everything.  I had been inclined to reduce the sugar, but my batter had a slight bitter taste (probably my additions) so I used the full amount and it was fine.  I skipped the glaze, though.  If I were to make this again, which I doubt, I would be inclined to cut it up into two-bite pieces and serve them in a bowl with whipped cream.

Recipes:  Sweet Potato Cinnamon Roll Cake via Bunny's Warm Oven (with reference to Kitchen Nostalgia's version and their original Cinnamon Roll Breakfast Cake.)