Scones for the Royal Wedding and Texas Rangers Cookies :) Yeah, I've been busy...

ATTENTION EVERYONE: THE ROYAL WEDDING IS UPON US!!!

I've been waiting for this day for so long. Those who know me know that I am OBSESSED with weddings. I am one of those foolish girls that have a few bridal magazines sitting on my bookshelf even though I am NO WHERE NEAR getting hitched. And don't read too much into my love for weddings. I am in NO WAY ready to get married and I do not want to get married right now. I just love weddings. I can't explain it. I love looking at wedding pictures in magazines, pictures of all the flowers, dresses, centerpieces.... you get the picture. So, naturally, I am SUPER PUMPED for the Royal Wedding! It's going to be the wedding of the century!

I wasn't around to witness Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding, but I'm sure there was just as much buzz about it as there is for this royal wedding. I feel like people have been at least speculating a wedding since last summer. I can remember Prince William being in all the little teeny-bopper magazines I read when I was younger and he was viewed as such a heartthrob. Now he's getting married! It's a big deal, people!

I'm just so excited. I can't decide if I'm going to pull an all-nighter to watch all the coverage. I can't wait to watch it all unfold.

This wedding will be gorgeous and talked about for the rest of time.

I am going to obsess over every detail, especially Kate's dress. I think that's what I'm looking forward to seeing most. I can see her in a fitted lace gown. Something really classy and timeless, just her style.

And speaking of Kate Middleton, how freakin' gorgeous is she? STUNNING. She is so classy and sophisticated. Why can't we have more women like her over here in the U.S. for girls to look up to? Instead we have nasty girls who...hmm how can I put this politely.... have their priorities mixed up? I'm talkin' about Miley Cyrus, Snooki, Lindsay Lohan...yeah those girls. We need someone like Kate over here to show young girls that being classy will get you far and will earn you respect as a lady. You don't have to wear hoochie shorts and low cut shirts to get places in life. I mean COME ON...she was a "commoner" and she is marrying A PRINCE. Lucky girl!

Anyways, I'm pumped. I think you have figured that out by now. If anyone is as obsessed as I am and wants to discuss the deets of the wedding, give me a call. I'll be ready.

Since the wedding coverage will be going on at the crack of dawn, you bet your sweet behind that I'll be up watching it all...devouring every detail...watching guests arrive....waiting to see Kate's dress.... so of course I need have an English breakfast to get me goin' in the morning. I decided on scones and found a recipe that used things I already had in my pantry. They're actually really easy and even though I haven't tried them yet, they look totally delish :)

Cranberry-Orange Scones
Recipe adapted from Southern Living

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. grated orange zest
1/2 c. butter (1 stick), cut into small pieces
2/3 c. buttermilk
1 c. dried cranberries
1 tbsp. milk
juice from half an orange (optional)
1 tbsp. sugar

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease it. (I recommend parchment paper.)

Combine first six ingredients (the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and zest.)

 In goes the flour and baking powder...

 

baking soda...

 

salt...(I was too lazy to get out the 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon!)

 

Then grate your orange. Just make sure you don't grate too hard. You don't want any of the white part under the orange part. Who knows what the technical terms are?

 

It smelled so good!

 

Dump it on in! Then stir everything so it's all incorporated. 

Now we need to cut in our butter. Make sure your stick of butter is really cold and then cut it into pieces.

 

I cut it 7 times going across and then did one big cut lengthwise.

 

Then just separate the pieces and lay them in there.

Do y'all have a pastry cutter? It's kind of a fancy contraption and can be substituted with two forks or two knifes. The basic idea of doing this is to "cut" the butter into the dry mixture so the butter is cut up into even smaller pieces. When the butter is in small pieces and it's baked, the butter melts in all those little pockets in the scones and makes them super flaky. YUM.

 

 This is a pastry cutter. I'm pretty sure the handle used to be red, but this was my Grandma's and you can tell she used it a lot!

 

You want the mixture to be crumbly. See how there are still little chunks of butter in there? That's what you're lookin' for!

 

Stir in the cranberries so they run evenly throughout the mixture.

 

Then add the buttermilk and stir until it just comes together. 

I didn't use buttermilk... just added some vinegar to regular milk and stirred. Use a spatula to mix all this together and seriously make sure you don't overmix it. You want to look for everything to look moist. Once it's all moist, stop mixing!

  

Flour a flat surface...

 Knead the dough 5 or 6 times until it's all uniform. Then pat it out into a flat circle. I would say the circle I made was about 8-10 inches wide and 1.5 inches high.

 I love how you can see all the orange zest and cranberries running through it!

 Cut the dough into 8 triangles. Cut a horizontal line, a vertical line and then cut an X into it. You should have 8 equal pieces!

We're going to make a shiny topping for them. Don't worry it's easy! Once they're on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, mix together the 1 tbsp. of milk and the juice of half an orange. You actually probably don't need the juice from the entire half of a lemon. In fact, you don't even need it at all.

Brush the tops of the scones with this wet mixture and then sprinkle sugar on top of each one. This will make the tops shiny and give them a slightly crunchy top.

 

You can just use milk if you want. I just cut open one of the oranges I zested to give it more orange flavor.

 

Lightly sprinkle sugar on top. Don't over do it. 

Now bake the scones for about 15 minutes. They're going to expand just a bit and they should be browned slightly when they're done. I would start checking them at around 13 minutes.

 

Browned and gorgeous! Guess I didn't do a good job of cutting them... they're all different sizes :)

Once they're cooled, put them on a pretty platter to make them look extra special for an extra special occasion!

 I'm ready for my English breakfast and my own personal Royal Wedding viewing party! And yes, I plan on drinking my tea with my pinky in the air :)

OH! Let me show you my Texas Rangers cookies! I obsessed over them last weekend and took them up to Tom Grieve and John Rhadigan in the media booth at the Rangers game on Sunday. They always give shoutouts and thank you's to people who bring goodies up to them, so I investigated how to get something up to them and did it on Sunday.

Well guess what, I GOT A SHOUTOUT! Tom Grieve read my name out and thanked me for the cookies and said it was "so thoughtful" of me and that they were "good looking cookies". Now I have a ton of Rangers-inspired baked goods ideas running through my head. Just you wait TAG and Rhadigan! We've still got quite a bit of baseball season left, so I've got plenty of time to brainstorm.

I worked so hard on them and I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. And the best payoff was that they liked them and appreciated them!