August 04, 2010

Chocolate Cinnamon Scone Bites and my new banner


Here it is...I finally got my own banner! This is part of my birthday gift from Wally. Those of you who were already reading my blog probably remember that my "maritino" (hubby) asked a friend of his, a super cool artist, to make my blog banner for my birthday. She was pretty busy in this period so she could not make it ontime but I was totally fine with waiting a bit longer because I knew the result would have been amazing. She has this amazing capability in translating somebody's personality into a drawing. 
The first work of her I saw were actually some drawings of my two oldest kitties, transformed in a cartoonish way and I thought they were just getting the essence of my two weirdos. When Wally told me about my birthday gift I was ecstatic and now you can see the reason. I'm really happy because those who know me (I mean that really met me in person) will immediately see how my banner is SOOO me and those who don't know me will really be able to grasp my essence a bit more. (And yes, I am cartoonish even in real life. I have this weird habit of making silly faces, voices and....sounds...yes...sounds...that making me a walking cartoon). Now I have to adjust my template...but that's enough for today :)

To thank Wally I made some yummy scones because they are his favorite baked good and I realized I hadn't made them in a while. I found this recipe on McCormick website but I changed it a bit. In particular, I drastically reduced the amount of chocolate. While I was adding it to the dough, the quantity on McCormick recipe seemed to me way too much. Both Wally and I loved them this way so I'm happy of my change. I hope you will enjoy it too and most important I hope you like the banner as much as I do!



Chocolate Cinnamon Scone Bites
Ingredients
400 gr (14 oz or 2 1/4 cups) flour
140 gr (5 oz or 2/3 cup) sugar
12 gr (2 1/2 tsp) baking powder
10 gr (2 tsp) cinnamon
2.5 gr (1/2 tsp) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
113 gr (1/2 cup or 1 stick) cold butter, cut into chunks
2 eggs
170 gr (6 oz or 3/4 cup) sour cream
10 gr (2 tsp) vanilla extract
85 gr (3 oz) semi-sweet baking chocolate, chopped
Preheat oven to 375°F and prepare two baking pans with parchment paper.
In a big bowl, mix the flour, the sugar, the baking powder, the cinnamon, the baking soda and the salt. Cut in butter and mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 


In a small bowl, beat the eggs together with the sour cream and the vanilla extract until you obtain a smooth cream. Add the cream to the flour mixture and stir until you obtain a soft dough. Stir in chopped chocolate. 


Place the dough on lightly floured surface and knead for about 1 minute or until smooth. Pat the dough into a rectangle and cut it into small square or even irregular bites if you prefer. Place the little squares onto the baking pans. (I obtained more or less 30 squares and thus I needed two baking pans)


Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and let them cool slightly on a cooling rack before devouring them!


Note: if can still bake them in the usual scones shapes. If you do so, however, you need to cook them more or less for 10 minutes longer.





34 comments:

  1. Love your new banner, and these scones look delicious! Perfect with a early morning cup of coffee. :)

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  2. Deliziosi..... posso rubarne qualcuno per la colazione????Stefy

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  3. Luv your new banner...your friend does beautiful work, it makes me smile!

    I've been on a scone quest and looking forward to trying these and I like that they're mini, bite-sized! ;)

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  4. These look delicious and I love your new banner! It's so cute!

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  5. Love, love, love the new banner...what a nice present. Happy birthday! Send us some scones too :)

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  6. Ma che bel regalo di compleanno, fantastico il tuo nuovo banner! Ottimi anche gli scones, appena fa un po' meno caldo li provo anch'io, magari spalmati di marmellata e accompagnati da una bella tazza di tè, molto English style :-)!

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  7. You and the kids look so adorable in that banner! And those scones... I can smell them from here!

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  8. Sara, i love your new banner. Totally fitting for your blog. Looks fun and cute! Now as for these delicoius looking scones..... YUMMY. Im literally salivating. I wish i had some....

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  9. Great new banner, and these Scone Bites look delish!

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  10. Wow! Your friend did a fantastic job on this banner... and what a thoughtful present, too.
    Your scones look like the perfect thing to go with my afternoon cup of coffee. Wish I had some today! :)

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  11. Thank you ALL! I will soon link to my friend website so you can see the amazing job she does...in the meantime I was too much in a hurry of showing you all my new banner! And I'm glad it makes you guys smile and that it looks fun and cute....that's what I always try to convey with my blog so the banner was very important. I'm virtually sending all you guys some scones :)

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  12. Such a cute banner. I love it. The scones look great, but I think this afternoon i might whip up those sugar donut muffins below...they seem to be all the rage, so I had better try them out. Cute blog!

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  13. Beautiful banner! What a great birthday gift :)
    And the scones look absolutely delicious!!

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  14. I love your new banner, the drawing is so funny!!!
    And those scones makes my mouth water :)

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  15. Molto bello il nuovo banner Sara, mi piace, però preferisco gli scones...:-P

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  16. Yum! these look great :) And I love the new look... fantastic!

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  17. Love the bite size scones! What a better idea than big ones. My favorite part is the crusty outside, this way I would get more of it.
    Love the new banner! You have a talented friend!

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  18. I love your new banner, it is so cool!! your scone bites look delicious, what a perfect treat with my coffee!

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  19. Thanks you guys! From all your comments I get that you really like the banner. I thought it is cool too but you know...I'm biased :) It was indeed a very thoughtful gift! I'm especially happy that it makes you smile and you guys think it's cool and fun...that's exactly what I wanted it to be! I often take myself way too seriously in life but in my heart I'm a cartoon and I wanted my blog to be a "light" environment as well.
    Oh and careful with these scones....they really are good, they go well with coffee, tea, milk or nothing and being "bites" you tend to allow yourself to eat them with less guilt. End of the story: in my house, 30 bites were over in 1 day :( I'll have to take a break from baking for a few days!

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  20. The banner is TOTALLY you! I love it. She's an awesome artist and caught your personality (from what I see on here) perfectly. The scones look great (except for those dark brown bits). :)

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  21. Sara.. the banner is awesome.... I have banner envy!!! Way cool!

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  22. I just found your site through foodgawker. LOVE the banner, it's very cute. I've been on the lookout for artists to do my banner too. The scones look great as well! Bite-sized is really the way to go.

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  23. LOVE the banner! Lovely little scones too. :)

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  24. Love the new banner! Very cute! And those scones lokk pretty amazing too...:)

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  25. Your banner looks really awesome...i can't wait to try these awesome scones..yummy!!! :)

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  26. What a great banner! I love it!
    Mmmm, scone bites. With chocolate and cinnamon. Two of my best friends in a baked good.

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  27. Thank you, thank you everybody! I'm sooo happy you like the banner....I'm still in the process of modifying the template but there won't be many more challanges. If you liked these scones, wait to see my next posts. Today was a bad day at work so I needed some sweet things to cheer me up. I'll post about it soon (hopefully!)

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  28. These look like the perfect little bite. Thanks for the recipe. I love your new banner. It is really cute. What a great birthday gift! So creative.

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  29. ooohh i love the look of these scones! they sound yummy too!

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  30. awesome banner! scones look yummmy!

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  31. That's the first thing I notice when I visited your site. It's a super cute banner!

    I like the chocolate-cinnamon combo. They look really tempting.

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  32. It's a lovely banner and the Chocolate Cinnamon Scone looks yummy.

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  33. @Risa@Lynn@Joyce@Emily@Anna: thanks you all for stopping by and appreciating my new banner....oh, right, I guess you were even more interested in those scones :) Check out my next post then!

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