Rustic Apple Strudel

A couple of weekends ago, we ushered in fall in upper Vermont and could have continued on to Canada if we’d wanted to, just to say we’d done it…but we didn’t. The leaves where we stayed in Warren were pretty much at peak, and the ferns along the mountain trails stood out green and electric against the changing maples. The air smelled like wood smoke at night, and there were ominous frost warnings, but we got a trace of sunburn during the day.

Ben will always be a sucker for the mountains of Vermont, since his family once had a farm up there. Five of them—six if you counted the dog—would pile into their wood-sided Wagoneer most Fridays and power up from Westchester; bathroom stops may or may not have been permitted. I would not have wanted to be in that car for anything, based on the fate of his sister's Teddy Ruxpin one particularly fraught trip (I think animatronic toys were banned from the car thereafter). The Sunday night returns were no doubt more subdued, after they’d tired themselves out running or skiing through the mountains, tearing along trails on their four-wheelers, helping their neighbor on his Christmas tree farm.

Naturally, since we were in the neighborhood of the old farm, we couldn't not pop in for a visit; it had been over 15 years since Ben had set foot on the soil there. So our family of five drove down the winding roads, along the Mad River for a stretch; past the old garage that he remembered new but which now looked all weathered and decrepit; past Farmer Frank’s ramshackle cabin. All the while we saw hand-painted signs pointing the way to Megan and John’s wedding…which, as fate would have it, was going down right on his family’s former property. I won’t get into too many details, but my children are forever scarred by the experience of crashing a stranger’s nuptials, and were plastered to the floor of the back seat as we rolled up to the upper field—just in time to see Megan, in crinoline and cowboy boots, emerge from the barn on her father’s arm. 

The next day turned colder, a bracing wind sluicing off of Lake Champlain down from Canada, and we went apple picking at the excellent Shelburne Orchards, in view of the lake. We bagged close to 40 pounds of fruit—about the same poundage as the 3 year old—as we shivered in our inadequate fleeces. We’re working our way through it, still. 

If Mari, our excellent au pair and friend from Germany, were still living with us, we’d have made greater progress by now. There are a lot of things we miss about Mari, and her apple strudel is one of them. Sometimes, on dark winter mornings, we would haul ourselves down to the kitchen to discover she’d baked us a surprise the night before, and suddenly the morning was more of a gift; that’s the kind of person she is. Fortunately, she hand-penned the recipe for me before she left. It comes by way of her friend Andrea, so it got translated from Czech to German and then to English by the time it reached my hands, and it virtually lacked instructions. I’ve had to hit Mari up for crucial details but haven’t had to change much. 

This is not one of your fancy apple strudels, which require lots of rolling and stretching of dough and turn out worthy of a window display in a Viennese bakery. This is one you can throw together with minimal ingredients one night when you have some extra apples and the oven already hot from dinner—and have a wonderful, quick breakfast the next morning. You can even make it with no sugar at all and substitute half whole wheat flour, and it's relatively healthy.   

This dough is forgiving to the extreme. I have a feeling the quantity of vinegar is somewhat responsible for this; it may seem like a lot, but trust me, this pastry works—it comes out light and flaky but still manages to hold the apples in securely. Sometimes when I make this, it’s a downright hideous, lumpen mass—the Jabba the Hutt of pastries. But somehow, after baking, it all seems to come together and the finished product is lovely in its rustic way. If only the world worked like this pastry does, we could solve a lot of problems. 

Rustic Apple Strudel

• 1 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1 stick cold butter (4 oz.), cut into small cubes

• ¼ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 4 medium apples 
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ⅓ cup slivered almonds or chopped walnuts
• optional:  ⅓ cup raisins, soaked for a few hours    

1. In a food processor or by hand, cut the flour, butter, and salt together until it has a sandy consistency with some larger (lentil-sized) chunks of butter still in. 
2. Whisk together egg and apple cider and quickly mix into the flour mixture until it just comes together; if it seems to dry, add a few drops of cold water. Shape into an oblong disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to rest in the refrigerator at least an hour. 
3. Preheat oven to 375. Peel apples and grate them, using the coarse holes on a grater, down to the cores (discard cores). Stir in sugar (omit if you prefer) and cinnamon. Before you transfer apple mixture to the dough, you’ll want to squeeze it lightly in your hands to remove excess liquid. 
4. On a floured surface roll out the dough into an oblong rectangle/oval shape, using as much flour as it takes to keep the dough from sticking. Dough should be about ¼ inch thick, and rough edges are OK. 
5. Carefully move the dough to a parchment- or silpat-lined baking tray. Working lengthwise, line up the apple mixture along one side of the dough, allowing a 1-inch margin. Fold the long side over until the edges meet, and then pinch or twist them together, empanada-style. If any holes spring up, just patch them shut with an extra scrap of dough. Place tray in the center rack of the oven and bake for around 40 minutes, or until the crust is nice and golden. Cool for a few minutes before cutting. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, or nothing at all. 

Other things: 

• Fancier Apple Strudel

• Martha and Snoop

• Dorie’s Cookies

• The Good Fork Cookbook

Strawberry muffins

Our summer CSA kicked off last week, which was the starting gun, of sorts, for summer cooking. Now, instead of beginning with a recipe and wrangling the necessary ingredients, the ingredients wrangle us. Imagine a benign but insistent band of curly cress, sunchokes, and sweet potatoes twirling and hurling a lasso at this family of four, because that’s kind of how it is. Funny salads are born, piquant green sauces evolve, spur-of-the-moment pastas and gratins equal dinner–and it's usually pretty delicious. 


What's headline-worthy right now are the glorious strawberries, the best we've had in years–I exaggerate not. They should be insipid and half-drowned from all this rain we've been getting, but instead they're concentrated and perky and sweet, the very essence of what a strawberry should be. I’ve followed Wilklow Orchards, our fruit CSA, to the Borough Hall and Fort Greene markets because we keep emptying our little green baskets of fruit and wanting more, more, more. I have a drawer full of those little red berry hairnets. As with the rhubarb, I’ve been compulsively hoarding and overstocking, because I know strawberries will be on their way out soon (This trait comes from Mom, who crams her cabinets with lotions, potions, and incandescent light bulbs, for fear her favorites will be discontinued).


I’ve been keeping this recipe for strawberry muffins up my sleeve for the past few years, and it makes nice use of the berries once the shine goes off them–which believe it or not happens very quickly if the berries last that long–because we're not talking about giant styrofoam strawberries here. The recipe somehow sprang out of one for blueberry muffins, from the Gourmet Cookbook (the big yellow tome), but it bears only a passing resemblance to the original. I did away with the suggested crumb topping (overkill), scaled back on the sugar, and substituted almond flour for some of the all-purpose flour, for a gentle nuttiness and tender consistency. The strawberries create fierce little pockets of fruit, and their juice runs a little bit into the nutty sweet batter; they remind me vaguely of the financiers I used to mix by the hundreds in a Hobart. 

There’s nothing exotic or mind-bending about this recipe, it just works and always, like strawberries themselves, aims to please. It makes a nice breakfast for those days we’re a bit late out of the starting gate, lying too long in bed listening to the birds outside, hearing the second wave of dogs go by on their walks. These muffins have rescued us on many a lazy morning. They’re not exactly health food, but they are pretty wholesome, tasty enough to tempt the most breakfast-averse among us to eat. And, since they're packed with fruit and a few almonds (almonds are a super food, right?), I don’t feel too guilty pressing one into a small, camp-bound hand and calling it the start of a day.

Strawberry almond muffins   

Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients: 

• 1 cup all-purpose flour   
• ½ cup almond flour (a.k.a. almond meal or finely ground almonds)  
• 2/3 cup sugar  
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder  
• ½ teaspoon salt  
• ¾ stick (6 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing tins  
• 1/3 cup whole milk  
• 1 large egg  
• 1 large egg yolk  
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract  
• 2 cups chopped strawberries, in blueberry-sized pieces

Instructions:  
Preheat oven to 375°. Generously butter muffin cups. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. In a small pot, heat butter until just melted, and remove from heat. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then whisk in milk, eggs, and vanilla until just combined. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then carefully fold in strawberries. Fill the muffin cups about ¾ way full, dividing batter evenly. Place in the center rack of preheated oven and bake, rotating about halfway through baking, for 20-30 minutes–or until tops of muffins are golden and they pass the toothpick test. Cool at least 15 minutes before removing from tins (I run a blunt knife around the edges of the muffins, then give them a little twist).

Granola

I don't have any extra-special Valentine's Day post this year. Although I treated my loved ones with the utmost kindness yesterday, I wasn't in the kitchen whipping up heart-shaped sugar cookies or champagne truffles or pink macaron lollipops–so I have nothing along those lines to offer. You can blame it all on my Mom, who each February 14th handed us a ritual card or a store-bought sweet–but let it be known this was but a Hallmark Holiday, and she would never pretend otherwise. Thus disabused, I now tend to follow her ways when it comes to Valentine's Day: ever-so-slightly observant but not devout.

So, what I'm here to talk about is granola. Not too romantic, I know–the name itself doesn't quite have the musical ring of éclair or meringue or millefeuille. But this treat I'm offering is honest and fortifying and crisp. My friend Tara shared it with me after her cousin, Kristen, put her on to it. This recipe is like an edible game of "telephone" that evolves a little with each round (Tara added coconut oil and flax seeds; I threw in maple syrup and chopped, dried apricots). Pass it along...I'm sure it'll change again before it's all over.

This also happens to be the first granola I ever made, and now I ask myself why I waited so long: granola's not cheap in stores around here, and there is nothing worse than paying $8 for a quart of stale, hyper-sweet oats. Making your own big batch every week or two and stashing it in mason jars just makes sense. After you stock your cabinets and measure out the ingredients, all you have to do is mix and bake and attend a bit–virtually no technique or skill whatsoever is required. What I like about this recipe is the super-nuttiness and the mellow, just-right sweetness supplied by honey and maple syrup. And, there's just the right amount of coconut. Normally, I avoid coconut in baking altogether, because the aroma tends to stir up bad teenage memories of overzealous tanning sessions and a dalliance with Malibu rum that ended badly. But this may be the recipe that changed my mind, since the coconut flavor translates to a subtle warmth and adds an extra measure of crispness.

Just a couple of notes: if you use dried fruit, make sure to add it afterward–I made the mistake of baking the apricots in with the rest, and they hardened into acrid little nuggets. Also, be sure to stir the granola around occasionally as it bakes, so that the nuts and grains brown evenly.

Kristen & Tara’s Granola
Ingredients: 

• 1 cup rolled oats (not “quick oats”)
• 1/2 cup Scottish Oatmeal, a.k.a. quick steel-cut oats (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup walnuts, lightly chopped
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, (pepitas)
• 1 TBS shredded coconut (unsweetened)
• 3 heaping TBS ground flax seeds

*** 

• 2 TBS honey
• 2 TBS maple syrup
• 2 TBS grape seed oil (you can also try canola, sunflower, or olive)
• 1 TBS coconut oil or coconut butter, melted
• 1 TBS vanilla
• ½ cup dried fruit, chopped (I used unsulphured apricots and would also suggest chopped dates, or whole cranberries or raisins)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325˚. Mix together dry ingredients (except for fruit) in a large bowl. Whisk together liquid ingredients in a medium bowl, then drizzle over dry ones, mixing to coat evenly. Spread onto a tray lined with silpat or parchment, and put in medium rack of oven. Bake for 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven), stirring every 10 minutes or so to redistribute browner “edge” pieces with less cooked “middle” pieces, until beginning to turn golden brown. If you’re using dried fruit, stir it in when you remove tray from the oven. Cool—granola will crisp as it cools down–and store in an air-tight container. This recipe makes about a quart and change.

Good mornings

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we are not morning people around here. Ben and I missed our own post-wedding brunch because we couldn't wake up in time, and old habits stick. So yet again, in 2011, I'm vowing to greet the day more gracefully, and to motivate the rest of my crew to do so. Will the resolution stick? Not likely. With the exception of my bright-eyed four-year-old, the rest of us excel at hitting the snooze button, ignoring the daylight creeping in, and hiding beneath the duvet until we have no choice but to crawl out in search of coffee. Our six-year-old, who in the morning hours is simply known as “The Teenager,” sets the tone, and even our energetic puppy has come around to our way of doing things.

I know there are important things I’m missing by rising at 10:00 on weekends. The sunrise, for one (there were fleeting windows, when the girls and the pup were new, when sunrise viewing was a big part of my life). I'll never show my face at the first yoga class of the day, and I'll always forfeit dibs on the choicest eggs at the farmer’s market–the ones from Grazin’ Angus Acres and Flying Pigs Farm, who sell out by 9. The scones and muffins will always already have cooled by the time I drag myself to Ted and Honey, and I can forget about ever making it out for a weekend breakfast date.

But compensatory strategies have evolved, and these have yielded rewards of their own. We're pretty good company at night, and those post-dawn lie-ins are delicious. The rogue earlybird of the family now pulls her weight in the morning; she is, dare I say it? Well-trained now. When we’re in the country, we’ve mastered the art of sending her downstairs to unlock the door, let the dog out, and push the ON button of the pre-loaded coffeemaker (next she’ll be fixing herself breakfast, as my own parents taught me to do by age five). By the time the pup has circled the yard and the aroma of Stumptown has wafted upstairs, we’re ready to join her, and then the six-year-old floats downstairs sometime in the next half hour: wraith-like, dandelion-headed, unwilling to eat or talk.

So to help revive her, and to make Saturdays a bit sweeter for all of us, I have a secret weapon, and it's called Meyer Lemon and Ginger curd. That last word does not sound very nice, so I prefer to just call it “morning sunshine” instead. I think of it as the golden love child of custard and marmalade: smooth and rich and tart. The ginger imparts a bit of added bite but can be toned down or left out altogether.

If you're not already acquainted with the meyer lemon, it's a lovely cross between a lemon and a mandarin, with lemon's bright and clear tones, the pucker tamed and rounded out by a hint of orangey sweetness. If moving to California were ever a consideration for me, meyer lemons, which grow like crazy there, would certainly be the deciding factor.


I'm aware that a curd can be whisked together over direct heat, but I prefer the security of an improvised bain-marie, or double boiler: by setting a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water, you heat an egg mixture more gently and help prevent scrambling or an uneven texture. If you'd like to try the recipe below over direct heat, go for it–just keep the heat very low and don't stop stirring.


When we have this addictive confection on hand, we slather it on toasted croissant halves or crispy toast. The girls sneak it out of the jar by the tottering spoonful, and we've found these spoonfuls an even more effective elixir for weekday mornings. And, although the sugar content is somewhat toned down here, this recipe is also great as a dessert component, with pound cake and fruit or in a flaky, pre-baked tart shell with berries on top. But we prefer to save this much-needed brightness to take the edge off our mornings. Graceful? It's a start.

Morning Sunshine  
adapted from recipes by David Lebovitz, and Claudia Fleming's The Last Course 

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• Zest of 2 large meyer lemons (preferably organic)
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed meyer lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger (less for a more subtle taste)
• Pinch of sea salt
• 6 tablespoons (3 oz.) unsalted butter cut into pieces, at room temperature

Instructions:  
Prepare a medium saucepan with water in the bottom, and find a metal bowl that fits snugly on top of it without touching the water. Bring the water to a gently simmer. Meanwhile, in the bowl, whisk together eggs, yolks, and sugar. Stir in juice, zest, ginger, and salt. Place bowl on top of saucepan and cook, whisking constantly so eggs don't scramble, for about 10 minutes. Stop when mixture is glossy and custard-like and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and whisk in butter in a few additions, until it blends into mixture. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve (use a spatula to push it through), and refrigerate immediately.

Pear and Honey Cake

This time of November, on colorless days when a certain kind of wind whips a mist off the river and rips the leaves from the plane trees, I find myself swept back to a place very different from Brooklyn, New York. It could be the special cocktail of weather that does it, or maybe it’s the rootless feeling such gusts can conjure, but suddenly, for a second, I’m 23 again and in the Camargue.

At the end of my post-college gap year (which was closer to two), my Mom flew over so we could take one last little trip together–and the month being November, we were celebrating our respective birthdays, even though neither one was of any consequence. I had been living in Paris, dodging real responsibility as a not-so-legal worker there, a cigar box my bank. Earlier fall had seen me kneeling in vineyards, picking grapes (and drinking) in Burgundy–the logical conclusion to a year pouring (and drinking) in a wine bar. Now it was time for me to head back to the States and start sculpting something of a grown-up existence out of my dissipated youth. My mother, upon landing, appraised my sparse collection of tired black t-shirts, gypsy skirts, and the inevitable array of scarves, sighed, and concluded: “I think we need to get you some decent clothes.” She whisked me off to buy my first interview suit and a presentable pair of heels, because soon I would be scraping together my resume and begging people in New York City to interview me.

Beyond the trauma of staring at a pinstriped version of myself in a shop mirror, it was a cocoon-like pause in my life, a happy distraction from the reality of leaving a place I loved and leaping into the unknown. Truffle season had begun, and after a few decadent dinners in Paris and Lyon, my Mom and I set off for the Camargue, that marshy area at the bottom of France where the Rhone empties into the Mediterranean. It’s a wild little corner just south of Arles, untouched by the Côte d’Azur glitz, a world apart even from the quaint hill towns of Provence. The region is famous for its red rice, bulls, mosquitoes, and, further south, the salt flats where fleur de sel blooms and flamingoes fan out overhead. The horses are all white and the bulls all black. It’s desolate compared to the sunny, intimately-stacked villages nearby, but there’s stark beauty in the expanses of flat, scrubby grassland and windswept trees.

the only surviving photo from the trip

We stayed at the Mas de Peint, a dignified and comfortable farmhouse with a handful of rooms, owned by a family–the Bons–whose patriarch (now deceased) was a swashbuckling character with a bushy white moustache and black cowboy hat. A cattle rancher born and raised, he was always dressed the part, and impeccably. He and his wife, Lucille, were warm and charming hosts, treating us like long lost friends as we took our meals in their kitchen and delighted in whatever was on offer that evening; it was always delicious. And since the sky outside dripped and blustered for most of our trip, the kitchen was the place to be, as close to the stove as possible, huddled over a soupe de potiron (pumpkin soup), a daube of the region's flavorful beef, and always expertly prepared vegetables from their garden. The one night we ventured out in the gloom, we lost ourselves on the meandering roads but eventually, on a tiny back lane, found the table d'hôte we had been seeking–literally, a small table in someone's modest kitchen, where that someone and her daughter prepared and served the meal, and fawned over us to make sure we were happy. I'm pretty sure their dog was roaming the kitchen, too, which we didn't mind at all. If memory serves, that dog even brought us our check at the end of the dinner. We ate some of the freshest and most delicious whole-cooked fish I had ever tasted, a vegetable gratin, maybe, and a homey dessert–and for the first time I realized how transcendent very simple food can be.

The sun emerged a few times and we rode white horses through the marshlands, drove down to see the salt flats and flamingos, and got lost a few more times before it was all over. It restored me to see an unfamiliar landscape, to smell new air. I felt warm and coddled. And the good, wholesome food, all straight out of the region we were exploring, built me up for the next adventure. I don't remember any of the desserts, just that they were simple, with fresh fruits (I'm sure Mom has it all written down somewhere); it would have been the time for pears. This dessert may have nothing to do with the ones we sampled there, but it reminds me of something we would have, that combination of flavorful pears and honey, suspended in a delicate cake. The recipe is adapted from one in the lovely Ducasse: Flavors of France, which was written around the same time of our trip, and given to me for Christmas by my parents the following year. If you make this–and you should–try to find lavender honey…it will complete the feeling. Enjoy it as breakfast or dessert on a blustery day.

 

Pear and Honey Cake

Ingredients for cake batter:

• 1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar) 
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• pinch sea salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted 

For the pears

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 pounds pears, such as Bartlett (not Bosc)–about 4 large pears
• 2 tablespoons delicately flavored honey, such as wildflower or lavender
• 1/4 cup pear liqueur (eau-de-vie)

Instructions:

For cake batter: 

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Beat in the baking powder and salt. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the flour and mix thoroughly, until smooth. Cover the bowl and let rest at room temperature for an hour. 

For the pears: 

Preheat oven to 400º. Butter and flour a large loaf pan (9x5" or 10x5") 

In a large skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat, and add half the pears. Cook for a few minutes, turning occasionally, until lightly caramelized on the outside. Add half the honey and turn to coat, then add half of liqueur. Cook for a couple more minutes, then transfer pears to a large bowl to cool. Repeat with remaining pears.

Once pears are cool, fold them gently into batter. Spoon pears and batter into prepared loaf pan and bake at the center of the oven for about 10 minutes, or until a crust forms on top. Using a sharp knife, cut a slash down the center of the cake. Lower oven temperature to 325º and continue baking for approx. another hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. 

Allow to cook for about 10 minutes before removing from pan, then cool on a rack or plate completely before cutting into it.  

 

Dates and good will

One frigid morning in January, our heat broke, and the house fell eerily quiet–and cold–without its background hum. Stranded at home waiting for the furnace man, I enticed a couple of friends over. And I baked. Those brave friends donned heavy sweaters, and in return I cranked the oven and made them coffee and warm date-walnut scones.

Dates, because that’s what we had. My husband, Ben, equates a big bowl of them with Christmas hospitality, which I've never understood (they are for him what clementines are for me), so we had leftovers–because of course no one's going for the dates when there are plates of pretty cookies everywhere.

Something I would like to say about dates is that, for the longest time I had no idea what one looked like–I knew them only as those dusty pellets loitering at the bottom of trail mix. Momo changed that. After college I worked in Paris, as a serveuse in a wine bar, and Momo was one of the cooks there, a lanky, brooding Moroccan who mostly kept his head down amid a battery of couscous jokes from the French chef. The Tamil cooks eyed him suspiciously, and they all worked alongside one another in their crazy, disconnected way.

Afternoons were slow, and the bar backed up to the pocket kitchen, so Momo and I found ourselves chatting comfortably during that idle stretch each day. He told me about his home back in Morocco, his family, and the meals his sister cooked for them. What he didn't tell me–but I always wondered–was what it felt like living as a Muslim immigrant in Paris. It cannot have been easy, judging by the dynamics where we worked, and the general anti-Arab fervor that flared up around the city at intervals.

Ramadan came, and Momo fasted each day. He looked thinner than ever–downright ashen, sometimes, as he headed into a double on an empty stomach. At dusk, he took out a package of dates and ate. "Les dattes!" he would proclaim, raising his arms in rhapsody, conveying how heavenly they must have tasted on the heels of a fast. The dates also took the place of the meal his family was sharing, one he missed most nights because of his job. We chuckled at the irony of his working in a restaurant, surrounded by food, but forbidden to even taste it. 

I was curious about these dates I had never seen before, and my questions unlocked a flood of enthusiastic memories: the sprays of ripe dates in the souks, the statuesque date palms so sorely absent in this city of gray monuments. I could relate, as a disconnected Virginian who had bitterly missed the sight of dogwoods and azaleas blooming that spring. 

One day, he brought me a bag of them. They still clung to their branches, golden and plump: fresh dates. I've never found them that way since, only the soft kind that has darkened and grown sticky, cured to a candied state. Those fresh ones tasted fruity and crunchy, and although I wasn't fasting (far from it), they made a lovely afternoon snack.

Ben, it seems, had the right idea all along; maybe there is something to the humble, wrinkled date that inspires good will, and perhaps I unknowingly stumbled upon it later, that January day, trying to make amends for my frozen house. 

As for the scones, they turned out far better than I could have imagined they would, and this is the first scone recipe I've actually wanted to make again. The outsides are unbelievably crispy, the interiors creamy and sweet. I found the base formula in the Gourmet Today cookbook (originally for raisin-orange scones), and I tweaked it. Here’s what resulted: 

Date-Walnut Scones:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 cup dried Medjool dates (about 10 dates), chopped into blueberry-sized bits
• ½ cup walnuts, chopped small
• ¾ cup half-and-half 
• 1 large egg, separated
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375º. In a food processor, pulse together flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and pulse until it is incorporated into coarse, pea-sized lumps (work quickly so butter doesn't melt).
2. Transfer mixture to a big bowl and stir in dates and walnuts. Whisk together cream, yolk, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir gently into flour mixture.Dough should be shaggy, but if you feel it is just not coming together, add a few drops of milk or cream until it does.
3. Move mixture to a floured surface and gently knead until it forms a unified mass (do not overwork). Fold over like a book, then again, then pat into a circle about 7 ½ inches across. Transfer to a lined baking sheet.
4. Lightly beat egg white with fork and brush some of it on top of the dough. Next, sprinkle remainder of sugar on top. Cut round into eight evenly sized wedges (like a pizza), but don’t separate.
5. Bake scones about 30-35 minutes, or until they are golden brown on top and underneath. *Important*: carefully separate them to check interiors, and if they still look underdone, separate scones and bake for 5 more minutes or so. They should be tender and moist but not soggy inside.