I found out recently that David Lebovitz has an iPhone app that has different/additional recipes that the ones on his blog. I told my mom about it, too, and she started making these chocolate chip scones from one of his recipes. I’ve recently been making these cranberry scones from Smitten Kitchen, and they are delicious (and for Thanksgiving breakfast I made her apple cheddar scones, which are great, too). But one morning recently I found myself both egg-less and scone-less. So I decided to try a batch of these chocolate chip scones, which don’t require any eggs. The original recipe calls for a bit of cinnamon and orange zest, but I had neither, so I added some ground ginger instead. Having eaten the original version when my mom made them, I can advocate for either flavoring combination. I also added some cocoa nibs since I had some on hand. They add a nice crunch, but are certainly optional.

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• Rhubarb Meyer Lemon Scones

Chocolate Chip Cherry Scones

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1/4 cup sugar (I used vanilla sugar since I had some on hand)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
8 Tablespoons butter, cut into chunks
2/3 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional)
1/2 cup buttermilk

For topping:
1/4 cup coarse sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 375 F. Whisk together dry ingredients (flour through ginger). Cut in butter until it’s the consistency of coarse meal. Stir in cherries, chocolate chips, and nibs, if using. Stir in buttermilk until sticky dough barely comes together; do not overwork.

Press into a circle about 1″ thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Combine coarse sugar and ground ginger. Press each wedge into the sugar topping before placing, sugar side up, on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake at 375 F for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden.

I like them best warm, but Matt thought they were better later in the day. So either way you serve them should be good, as long as you make these scones!

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Angel Biscuits

Even though there is yeast in this dough, it is also leavened with baking powder/soda and does not have to rise before baking The dough may also be stored in the refrigerator for several days before rolling out and shaping.

1 package dry yeast
5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 t salt
3/4 cup shortening
2 cups buttermilk
melted butter, for dipping (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Proof yeast by dissolving in 2 Tablespoons warm water. (If it doesn’t bubble a bit after a few minutes, your yeast is dead.)

Stir together dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Stir yeast into buttermilk, add add to the cut together mixture.

Knead well. Turn out on a lightly floured board and roll out about 1/4″ thick. Cut with biscuit cutter and bake as biscuits. Or, dip in melted butter and fold over to make pocketbook rolls.

Bake 400 F for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

So as you may remember, pizza is not exactly a new challenge for us, but even so I was excited that a new pizza dough would be the recipe for this month, hosted by Rosa at Rosa’s Yummy Yum Yums. I’m always interested to try different takes on pizza crusts, and while my mom has gone through several iterations, I’m still not sure she’s found the perfect recipe.

This dough, from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, was decidedly different from the other pizza crust I or my parents have made in the past, not so much in the ingredients or proportions, but in its method. Instead of letting the dough rise after mixing all the ingredients together, it’s formed into balls and refrigerated for 1-3 days, then rested at room temperature for “exactly” 2 hours before forming into crusts. The result was a dough that we found very difficult to work with — as soon as we tried to lift up one of the disks, it just kept stretching and stretching and stretching, so that it often tore, and was very hard to get even. I tried doing the traditional “tossing” method, but for the most part, the dough just stretched too thin for that as soon as I picked it up, so it was more a game of picking it up as quickly as possible and laying it on the pizza peel before it got any holes in it. (My parents came over for dinner the night we made this, so I put her to work shaping dough as she’s much more practiced at it than I am. I’ll try to see if she’ll let me take some instructional pictures at some point.)

Even though it was hard to work with, though, this dough had a really excellent flavor. I think it might’ve been from the tablespoon of sugar, but it just seemed like it had a little more flavor than our normal dough recipe, and it was a nice balance between crispy and chewy. So I’m not writing it off yet. Next time I think I might try letting it rise a bit before refrigerating it to develop the gluten a bit more. I also think it needed more flour — the dough seemed kind of shaggy even after sprinkling a fair amount on top, so that might help as well.

On the topping front, we tried a new potato pizza inspired by this one at Smitten Kitchen, but changed around a fair amount. We also made a couple of our familiar favorites — caramelized onions with blue cheese; feta, bacon, pesto, and pine nuts; and margarita — tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil. For more topping ideas try here or here.

Pizza Dough

4 1/2 c high gluten flour (I used Giusto’s high performance flour)
1 3/4 t salt
1 t instant yeast
1/4 c olive oil
1 3/4 c cold water
1 T sugar
cornmeal

Mix together the flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Ad olive oil, water, and sugar. Knead 5-7 minutes, until smooth. (However, the dough should still be pretty sticky, as well as springy an elastic.)

Cut into 6 pieces, sprinkle with flour and roll into balls, and place on an oiled jelly roll pan. Lightly spray oil on the dough, and then cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours and up to 3 days.

Two hours before you plan to make the pizza, remove from the refrigerate. Gently press each ball into a disk about a 1/2 inch thick, flour and spray lightly with oil, and cover loosely for 2 hours.

When ready to make the pizza, first preheat the oven as hot as it will go, with a pizza stone on the middle rack. (For me, that was 550 F.) Sprinkle a pizza peel (or the back of a pan) with cornmeal. Form the disk into a thin circle, either by hand or using a rolling pin. I actually think it’s easier to do it by hand, but I don’t really try to toss it. Instead, I kind of lay the dough over my fists and kind of move it around in a circle while gently stretching it. Or, I turn the disk vertically, and kind of turn it round and round while holding the top edge, to let it stretch itself with its own weight. At least, that’s what I normally do, but this dough stretched so much that all I had to do was carefully lift it up and then set it back down on the peel.

Top the pizza, then slide it onto the pizza stone. Cook a few minutes, until the crust is lightly browned and the cheese is melted.

Potato Pizza

crème fraîche
2 small red potatoes, thinly sliced
2-3 T herbs, such as basil, rosemary, parsley, thyme, chives, etc.
2-3 cloves of garlic
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 pizza crust

Chop the herb and garlic together. Add salt and pepper to the herb/garlic mixture and make into a paste. Let sit for at least a half hour or so if possible to let the flavors meld.

Spread the crust with crème fraîche. Top with the potatoes in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with the herbs and a bit of extra salt. (Remember how much salt potatoes need and don’t be too cautious!) Bake a few minutes in as hot an oven as possible, until lightly browned.