Bud's Cheese Straws - the perfect accompaniment to...

...a glass or two of Rodney Strong's delicious Merlot. This is an underrated vineyard in my opinion, and well worth a visit.

Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of pastry cutters. For my Fourth of July party this year I cut two thirds of this cheese dough into strips, and used my star cutter on the remainder. Cheesy stars and stripes to serve to my fellow countrymen.

I also love to use my dog-bone cutter and then watch people try to decide whether I'm offering them dog biscuits with their drink! These biscuits are named in honor of a legendary Black Lab, Bud. When his nose detected these baking he would go into hiding under the kitchen table where the cooling rack was waiting. He got lucky more than once.

Here's how:

2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 sticks butter
10 oz cheese*, grated

A word of advice on the cheese: a mix of Gruyere, Parmesan and Cheddar is good. Please do not cut corners with any old Jack. Get good quality European cheese and Vermont Cheddar. These babies are worth it.

Mix dry ingredients and grated cheese in a big bowl. Now here's the secret I want to share with you: FREEZE the butter for 30 minutes before you start, then grate it into your mixture. (This is my technique for sticky dough avoidance, particularly when the proportion of fat to flour is as high as this. It works. It's fast. It keeps the dough light.). Stir to mix with a couple of tablespoons of ice water. Chill 30 minutes.

Roll out dough 1/4" thick. Cut into straws or with a cutter. Chill again. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake 10 minutes or until golden. Transfer to cooling rack.

Can you smell them already?

Let's start the day - and the blog - with Fruit Scones, a Williams-Sonoma recipe with JGH's variations

We're starting with a stalwart from the kitchen of the great Chuck Williams. These scones are perfect for breakfast, to offer unexpected guests (they freeze great), and pretty much any time. I think the original recipe used half a cup of chopped, crystallized ginger as the flavoring. I've experimented so much since, I don't rightly recall.

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
5 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
16 tbsps/2 sticks chilled, unsalted butter
1 egg
scant 1/2 cup milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a big baking sheet with parchment. Process dry ingredients with butter until you get fine crumbs*. Whisk egg and milk, add to dry mixture and mix to form moist clumps of dough (no over mixing!) Turn onto lightly floured surface, pat together with hands to make a cube of the dough. Make four cuts each way through the dough so you end up with 16 little towers (it's ok, they'll flatten into shape in the baking process). Next time I make some I'm going to try and add a photograph here to show you what I mean. Bake until golden, 25-35 minutes.

Cutting the dough

Blueberry-cinnamon scones

Flavors:
*At the crumb stage stir in one of these combinations:
- chopped pecans and banana (if banana ripe, mash with egg and reduce milk a little)
- blueberries and vanilla
- raspberries and almonds
- cranberries and orange zest (Thanksgiving breakfast, right?)
- chopped walnuts and maple syrup (reduce sugar, sprinkle brown sugar on top to form crust)
- chopped apple, oats and pumpkin pie spice (for a Hallowe'en treat not trick)

Hello World!

I've not done this kind of thing before, so bear with me, okay. To my friends who think I'm not up to blogging and I'm just an old fraud, watch and weep, guys, watch and weep. I plan to post every few days. I'll put up some old favorites, with appropriate credits of course, and I'll be including my variations and tips, along with a few original recipes...