Gingerbread Scones

This 5-day weekend of mine is slowly coming to a close. How does that happen? A birthday celebration on Thursday and Friday with Mom, a trip to Milwaukee with Andy for a wedding and then the Cardinals/Brewers game the next day, and finally a day for just plain catching up.

Thursday: Mom and I are really good at fluffing away the day when spending it together in the city. We always claim that the day goes too quickly. In honor of Mom's birthday, I thought we would spend the day in the new neighborhood and get acquainted with some of the local things going on in and around Southport. I've driven by the apartment so many times since officially renting it, that I'm convinced the neighbors think there is a new neighborhood stalker. I just like driving by it. Last week at 8pm, I was sort of in the area and thought, I wonder what's going on at the apartment at 8pm on a Wednesday - so why not drive by, right?

Instead of doing the normal Starbucks routine, we thought a trip to Julius Meinl would be fun. I ordered an Americano. What a perfect presentation. I hesitated pulling out the camera to take a picture, as we had already made a scene picking a table and ordering from the counter, so I didn't want to draw any more attention to our table - but took the picture anyway. I mean, when am I ever going to see these people again? Oh wait......

A couple of weeks ago, Andy and I had lunch on a Friday afternoon at Southport Grocery - which is also in the new neighborhood. You know who lunches on Friday here? Young mothers, with one of their other girlfriends, and their very young babies. Despite the presence of young children (I'm sure they'll eventually grow on me), I loved it and knew it would make a great lunch spot for Mom and I. I'm already a big fan of the beet salad with fresh goat cheese and the bruschetta with eggs and fresh tomato sauce.

I was also lucky enough to spend a weekend at home in Crystal Lake at the very beginning of June. It doesn't happen to often, and it was just so nice to be at home for longer than 3-4 hours at a time. Chloe can't contain her excitement to have me home, spending some time in the kitchen - as you can obviously tell.

I decided to wake up and make breakfast for the 3 of us while at home on Sunday. Mom warned me that there weren't too many options in the pantry, so I took that into consideration when picking a recipe. This scone doesn't contain any nuts or pieces of dried fruit - which means that if you have the normal pantry staples + molasses, you should be able to whip these up without a trip to the grocery store.

Mom makes jet-fuel strength coffee. I always credit my love of strong coffee to her. These Gingerbread scones are wonderful - and guess what - they go perfectly with a strong cup of coffee. The 3 of us sat at the island in the kitchen, reading the paper, drinking coffee, and eating scones. You can't ask for a better Sunday morning.

They come together very easily. Since I seem to be making scones on a regular basis, I've decided to ditch the step of rolling them out and cutting them into triangles. While it might look just a bit fancier, it is much easier (and faster) to drop them onto the baking sheet. Give these a whirl!

Gingerbread Scones

adapted from Epicurious.com

print this recipe

2 cups flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

6 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs

4 tablespoons molasses

1 tablespoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Blend first 6 ingredients in a food processor. Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk, eggs, molasses and vanilla to the processor and mix until combined and dough forms. Drop scones into 1/4 cup piles and flatten into round disc on the baking sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes. Serve warm.