Like I said, I have not been inventing recipes recently, but I have been tweaking existing. Today for breakfast I made giant buckwheat fig-filled scones, based on two from 101 Cookbooks.
The giant scones are filled with a fig jam, that starts with the ingenious step of making a caramelized sugar syrup then adding wine and whole spices and simmering the figs in it. I didn’t have port, so I used Marsala, and a touch less than the half cup called for – I didn’t want my jam to be too wine-y. When you puree the jam you add butter; Heidi recommends a pinch of salt – I used salted butter, and only about 6 TBLS instead of the 8 specified. Otherwise I made the jam as written.
The original fig scone scone dough is supposed to be a buckwheat dough with 8 TBLS butter and 1 1/4 cups cream to 2 1/4 cups flour, part buckwheat and part white. I wanted a leaner dough, and more of it, so I used the dough from an earlier 101 Cookbooks recipe – Mega Scones – and subbed in orange zest for lemon, and 1 cup buckwheat in place of 1 cup white flour. I used 1 cup heavy cream and the rest skim milk, ‘cuz that’s what I had and forgot to save a little cream for brushing the top – so I used buttermilk, and sprinkled with coarse sugar.
Yum, especially when the jam was hot. I took one over to Rach so she could share it with her little brother and her pregnant sister-in-law who arrived sometime today.