Orange Date Scones by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: Back in 2020 in the days of the pandemic, I made a recipe of banana date scones that was fashioned after an amazing scone that we tasted in Scotland. With this scone, I had been hoping to bring back memories of happier times.  Those months and years were so hard, and we were all trying our best to figure out how to survive! For me, food was a big part of it.

Today’s recipe is another date scone, but it uses yellow Bahri Dates from California, along with orange extract and peel from Penzey’s that I’ve been meaning to try. If you don’t like the idea of so much orange, you could replace the extract with vanilla or even almond. You could also add nuts if you like. You could also add a glaze of confectioner’s sugar and orange juice. I skipped that this time.

The basic scone recipe comes from Sally’s baking addiction, with tweaks from me. She is very definite about using frozen butter that has been grated, and then mixed into the dry ingredients. So that’s what I’ve always done and they turn out well.

Preheat the oven to 400

Ingredients for the scones

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon dried orange peel

1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen

1/2 cup heavy cream or whole milk

One large egg

1 teaspoon orange extract

One cup yellow dates, cut into small pieces

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Grate the frozen butter into the dry ingredients and mix into pea-sized crumbs.

Whisk together the egg, the cream or milk, and the extract. Pour this over the dry ingredients, followed by the dates. Mix until moist.

Scrape the dough onto a piece of parchment on the counter that has been lightly floured. Flour your hands as well. Mix lightly until it holds together and tap the dough into a circle. Slice the circle into wedges, the size you want to serve.

At this point, you can brush the scones with more cream and sprinkle them with sugar. Transfer the parchment to a plate and freeze them for at least 15 minutes. Move the scones to a baking sheet covered with a clean parchment sheet.

Bake the scones for 22 to 25 minutes until lightly browned.

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Book 15 in the Key West series, THE MANGO MURDERS, is in bookstores now!

The trade paperback edition of A POISONOUS PALATE is out now! 

And the trade paperback edition of A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS is out now!

Release Day News: Trade Paperback Edition of A SCONE OF CONTENTION @lucyburdette

 

Congratulations to our own... 

Lucy Burdette

on the paperback release of A Scone of Contention!

A murderer's out to spoil Hayley's honeymoon in national bestselling author Lucy Burdette's eleventh Key West Food Critic Mystery.

Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow and her groom, police detective Nathan Bransford, chose Scotland for their long-delayed honeymoon, hoping to sightsee and enjoy prize-winning scones. But their romantic duo swells to a crowd when they’re joined by Nathan's family as well as octogenarian Miss Gloria. 

Nathan’s sister Vera takes the women on a whirlwind tour of some of Scotland’s iconic mystic places as research for a looming book project. But the trip takes a deadly tartan turn when a dinner party guest falls ill and claims she was poisoned. And then the group watches in horror as a mysterious tourist tumbles to his death from the famous Falkirk Wheel, high above the Forth & Clyde canal. 

Vera and her friends deny knowing the dead man, but after observing their reactions to the fall, Hayley is not convinced. With one person dead, a second possibly poisoned, and the tension among Vera’s friends as thick as farmhouse cheese, Hayley fears her long-awaited honeymoon might end with another murder. 

Far away from home, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, eccentric characters, and a forbiddingly gorgeous setting, Hayley must call on all her savvy to keep a killer from striking again and then escaping Scot free.

Buy the book here

Strawberry Scones @LucyBurdette #ASconeofContention

 

Lucy Burdette: I know that sometime last year I announced that I was finished with scone recipes since the eleventh Key West food critic mystery, A SCONE OF CONTENTION, was well and truly launched. However, since the trade paperback edition of the book is out this week, I thought it deserved celebratory scones. (Plus, my hub was nudging me to use up the strawberries that I bought at the farmers market. And we had some sour cream that needed to be used as well.) 

I was very pleased with the way these strawberry scones turned out and I hope you will find them delicious too! Two quick tips to help them turn out tender: Use frozen butter. Mix minimally.

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/3 cup sugar

One stick, that is 8 tablespoons, frozen unsalted butter

One egg

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons whole milk

1/2 tsp almond flavoring 

1 cup chopped fresh strawberries

Milk and sugar for topping

Preheat the oven to 400.

Combine the first four ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Grate the frozen butter into the dry ingredients and mix moderately.

Combine the sour cream, the egg, the almond extract, and the milk and beat them until smooth. Stir this mixture into the flour butter bowl, taking care not to over mix. Add the chopped strawberries and mix tenderly.

Scrape the dough onto a piece of parchment paper on your baking pan and shape it into a circle. 

Cut the circle into eight wedges and move each wedge apart so there’s a little space between its neighbors. Brush the scones with a little milk and sprinkle sugar over top.

Bake the scones at 400° until beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Let them cool a bit before diving in.

As you can see, we had the first warm scones from the oven with our dinner of omelette and salad. Delicious!

The paperback edition of 11th book in Lucy's Key West food critic mystery series, A Scone of Contention, is on bookshelves near you. You can find it wherever books are sold!

A scone-by-scone tour of glorious Scotland. Foodies and Outlander fans will rejoice in the references to both in this not-so-mysterious paean to Scotland. –Kirkus

Sign up for Lucy's newsletter to get book news, recipes, and lots of other extras!

Irish Soda Bread, Take One @LucyBurdette

 

LUCY BURDETTE:  For some reason I had decided I was not a fan of Irish soda bread. Maybe I had a bad loaf somewhere, sort of like a bad clam? I can't exactly remember. However, a few months ago I went into my favorite Connecticut bakery’s pop-up event and noticed that their soda bread looked delicious. I bought a loaf and we gobbled the whole thing. This is my attempt to recreate it, using the website Sally's Baking Addiction as a starting point.  Next time I make this (and there will be a next time,) I would add another tablespoon of sugar and also a tablespoon or more of zested orange peel. I will also try substituting my uncle’s dried Michigan cherries for the raisins.

Ingredients

1 and 3/4 cups buttermilk or milk with added 1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 large egg 

4 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for your hands and the counter

3 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

5 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter

1 cup raisins

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

I've gotten in the habit of not buying buttermilk, because I usually end up throwing half of it out. And it is higher in sodium than regular milk. If you want to use buttermilk, have at it. If you would like a substitute, squeeze half a lemon into a two-cup measuring cup and fill to the one and 3/4 cup mark with whole milk. Set that aside to come to room temperature. Whisk it together along with one egg.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a big bowl, the flour, the sugar, the baking soda, the salt, and the caraway seeds. Stir in the raisins.

Cut 5 tablespoons of very cold butter into the dry ingredients. The colder the butter, the lighter the batter. 

When the butter is pea sized, carefully fold in the egg and milk mixture. 

Move the batter to a floured surface (I used parchment paper with a little flour sprinkled on it.) Flour your hands and knead the dough briefly into a round. Again, shorter is better, even 30 seconds. 

Move the batter to a prepared greased pan. (This can be a pie plate, a cake pan, or cast iron skillet.) Those round pans help the bread keep its shape. Once in the pan, make a cross in the batter with a sharp knife.

Bake in a 400-degree oven for about 25 minutes. You can check the bread halfway through to see if the top is getting too brown. If so, cover with foil for the second half of the baking.

Let the loaf cool for ten minutes or more before you slice it. Serve warm with more butter and possibly raspberry jam, or for breakfast, maybe with peanut butter?

In addition to Lucy's Key West food critic mysteries, she's written a thriller called Unsafe Haven! Hardcover and audio will be out this week.

About Unsafe Haven: A chance meeting on the New York subway leads to the destinies of two very different women becoming intertwined with terrifying consequences in this nerve-jangling thriller.

Sixteen-year-old Addison is on the run. She's leaving her life on New York's streets behind for a new one with Rafe, armed with just his phone number on a scrap of paper. She's taking the subway to meet him in New Jersey. He'll take care of her. Or so she thinks . . .

Elizabeth Brown's world has fallen apart and she's thinking about her newly ex-fiancé. Until she locks eyes with a teenage girl while waiting for the train doors to open, and a bundle is thrust into her arms as she leaves the subway. A baby, wrapped in a dirty coat.

Elizabeth phones the number she finds in the coat pocket. Then wishes she hadn't. Someone wants Addison and the baby. And they'll do whatever it takes to get them . . .

In a major departure from her lighthearted Key West mysteries, Burdette invites readers into the world of a chilling thriller. (Unsafe Haven is) a page-turner highlighting the problem of exploited runaways.

—Kirkus Reviews

If you'd like a nibble before you buy, read the first chapter here. And if you'd like to read more about the genesis of the book, read this post from Jungle Red Writers.

Ways to buy your copy of UNSAFE HAVEN:

Book depository 

Indiebound 

Barnes and Noble 

Amazon 

Severn House 

And if this is not in your budget (which I totally get,) you can invite your local library to order a copy!

Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: We love enchiladas in my household, but the jarred sauce is often loaded with sodium (as are store-bought tortillas--yikes.) This recipe for homemade sauce caught my eye and it turned out to be delicious—it probably tastes the most like authentic Mexican restaurant enchilada sauce of any I’ve tried. It’s not a last-minute recipe so start ahead. In fact, one good idea would be to double the sauce and freeze half of it so you have some pre-made for next time...

You can change up the contents of the tortillas as you like. Cookie and Kate concentrated on artichokes and spinach, but I used chicken from a roast I made earlier in the week, plus black beans from black bean soup (ditto, earlier dinner), and some leftover spinach. The sauce is so good that you could use any filling—all vegetable, ground beef and rice, the options are endless. (And for future reference...)

Here’s another of my favorite enchilada recipes with green tomatillo sauce.

And here’s one made with fresh tomatoes. 

And here’s the black bean soup recipe, that came from Death on the Menu. 

 Now back to today's recipe!

INGREDIENTS

Homemade red enchilada sauce (yields 2 cups sauce)

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 tablespoons flour

• 2 teaspoons ground chili powder

• 1 teaspoon cumin

• ½ teaspoon garlic powder

• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

• 2 cups vegetable broth (check for sodium levels in broth too!)

• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 

• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Enchiladas

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 cup chopped red onion (about 1 small red onion)

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 cups black beans (homemade is best, but you can also use canned—rinse and drain before adding)

• 1 (4-ounce) can green chilis, drained

• 12 ounces baby spinach, preferably organic

• 1-2 cups shredded chicken

• ¼ cup sour cream, plus more for serving

• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• 6 (8-inch) whole wheat or regular tortillas

• 1 and 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (mine had hot peppers in it for more zip)

• Handful chopped cilantro, for garnish

Measure out the spices and flour for the sauce before you start cooking. Heat the olive oil and add the spices, stirring until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and mix that in well. Next slowly add the broth—this will resemble making gravy, keep whisking until it has thickened.  Off the heat, add in the vinegar and taste to see if it needs seasoning. Set that aside.

For the enchiladas, sauté the onion and garlic in oil until soft. Add your chilis and spinach and cook this until the liquid has evaporated. Add chicken and beans to heat through. Mix in the sour cream and 2/3 of the cheese.

Grease a 9x13 pan and pour a half or so of the sauce into the bottom. Divide the filling between the 6 tortillas, roll them up, and nestle them into the sauce. Sprinkle with more cheese. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes, until the sauce bubbles, cheese is melting, and tortillas are beginning to brown. Add more sour cream if you like it for serving, and sprinkle with cilantro for garnish.

And that's what will happen! Enjoy!

The 11th book in Lucy's Key West food critic mystery series, A Scone of Contention, is on bookshelves near you. You can find it wherever books are sold!

A scone-by-scone tour of glorious Scotland. Foodies and Outlander fans will rejoice in the references to both in this not-so-mysterious paean to Scotland. –Kirkus

Peach Scones @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I may have reached the end of my run of scone recipes to celebrate the release of A SCONE OF CONTENTION, and we’ve also reached the shoulder season for peaches in my New England area. That always makes me sad. Of course I love apples and raspberries, which will follow, but peaches are my favorite. I buy them by the bushel from our local farm market and use them as often as I can. This recipe for peach scones uses those fresh peaches and is based on one I found in Baker by Nature. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup brown sugar

One stick a.k.a. 8 tablespoons frozen unsalted butter

One egg

1/2 cup sour cream

2 1/2 tablespoons whole milk

One cup ripe peaches, peeled and cut into small chunks

One egg white +1 teaspoon water

2 tablespoons coarse sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 400°. Combine the dry ingredients with a fork. Take care to mix the brown sugar in thoroughly.

Placing the grater over the bowl of dry ingredients, grate the frozen butter into the bowl using the largest holes. Mix the butter in well with the flour mixture.

In another bowl or large measuring cup, whisk the egg, sour cream, and milk. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just moist. Carefully stir in the peaches.

At this point, dump the batter onto a piece of parchment paper and shape it into a circle. The batter will be wet and uncooperative, but carry on!

Cut the circle of dough into eight wedges and separate them slightly so there is space between each scone. Brush with the egg/water mixture and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake until beginning to brown, about 18 minutes. Serve as you like with more butter, whipped cream, or just as they are. These freeze well and can be defrosted and warmed up for a treat on another day.

The 11th book in Lucy's Key West food critic mystery series, A Scone of Contention, is on bookshelves near you. You can find it wherever books are sold!

A scone-by-scone tour of glorious Scotland. Foodies and Outlander fans will rejoice in the references to both in this not-so-mysterious paean to Scotland. –Kirkus

Release day news: A Scone of Contention @LucyBurdette

  

Congratulations to our own... 

Lucy Burdette

on the release of A Scone of Contention!

A murderer's out to spoil Hayley's honeymoon in national bestselling author Lucy Burdette's eleventh Key West Food Critic Mystery.

Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow and her groom, police detective Nathan Bransford, chose Scotland for their long-delayed honeymoon, hoping to sightsee and enjoy prize-winning scones. But their romantic duo swells to a crowd when they’re joined by Nathan's family as well as octogenarian Miss Gloria. 

Nathan’s sister Vera takes the women on a whirlwind tour of some of Scotland’s iconic mystic places as research for a looming book project. But the trip takes a deadly tartan turn when a dinner party guest falls ill and claims she was poisoned. And then the group watches in horror as a mysterious tourist tumbles to his death from the famous Falkirk Wheel, high above the Forth & Clyde canal. 

Vera and her friends deny knowing the dead man, but after observing their reactions to the fall, Hayley is not convinced. With one person dead, a second possibly poisoned, and the tension among Vera’s friends as thick as farmhouse cheese, Hayley fears her long-awaited honeymoon might end with another murder. 

Far away from home, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, eccentric characters, and a forbiddingly gorgeous setting, Hayley must call on all her savvy to keep a killer from striking again and then escaping Scot free.

Buy the book here