Hey – first let me say something I say quite often: sorry! Sorry for not posting anything for such a long time, sorry for not baking anything in a couple of weeks and sorry for it still taking a week for me to post the bake I did. Let’s just say I’ve been crazy busy.
I do say I’m sorry quite a lot – people often tease me with it or say that I should not say it that often. But it is difficult – it has entered my system haha. And I do truly mean it when I say it – however, I often mean the more kind of ‘ I’m sorry for you/that sucks/that is so unfortunate/I wish I could do something to help/that’s a shame’ and not the ‘ I’m sorry because I am the one to blame’. Nevertheless, this time I am sorry as in I am the one to blame for not posting something in quite a while. I tried to remember very hard what my last post actually was and then I realized it was before easter – BEFORE EASTER. That feels so long ago. I’m sorry. 
Nevertheless, I had a really nice easter weekend – I went and visited my parents in Mildura. And I did actually bake (twice!) something there, together with Nic. We had a dinner on the first night in Mildura and I offered to bake something. One of the children that came for dinner was gluten-free, so there I got a challenge. I searched the web a bit and found this yummy sounding almond and orange cake, but also a yummy sounding almond and apple cake. So what to do? Combining it! So we made a gluten-free almond, orange, lemon and apple (first time, but pear second time) cake. And it turned out to be very delicious! Soon I will make it for my blog as well!
After the Easter the weekend, the chaos began. I had to work a lot on the cookbook that I am volunteering for which I still enjoy a lot – but it also took a couple of long days of hard work to get it where it is at now. Besides that, I had this big assessment due for my Spatial Design class. We had to design a house of 10 square meters, with everything in it – bathroom, kitchen, dining/living and bedroom – which is a pretty hard challenge. Nevertheless, after a weekend of late nights, stress, stress, stress, freaking out of a stupid model, Google Sketchup, printing a poster, I presented my ‘Mountain House’. My design was a 10 square meter permanent shelter in the mountains for temporary stay for mountain climbers. So happy that that is done – now onto the next assessment.
And of course it stayed busy after – until now – when I have finally found a moment to post up these yummy, delicious, health-ish, high-tea-indulgencing, maple and oat scones. When I was deciding on my bake for the week, I felt like making something a bit less cakey, or sweetish. I was contemplating of going all the way to the savoury side – but scones seemed like a good in between. Besides that, I had never actually made them myself (but have indulged on them in the UK the last time I was there) and I had no reason for never making them (because I really like them, I have made tea biscuits before which are really yummy as well – maybe on my blog sometime soon?), so it was time! I did some research on scone recipes on my good old friends BBC food and BBC Good Food. However, none of the recipes seem to please me enough to get excited to start making them. So I went of my computer, back into real cookbook and got the scones recipe from A Piece of Cake by Leila Lindholm. I planned on making her recipe – but I wanted to change it a bit, so I could create it for my own blog. So I wondered around the internet a bit more and stumbled across the Oat and Maple Syrup Scones from Smitten Kitchen.
So in the end I did what I did with the gluten-free cake as well – I made a recipe which combined both Leila’s recipe and the Smitten Kitchen scones. And well – they turned out pretty delicious. Good as afternoon tea, good for breakfast, good for during a group meeting for a presentation, good with jam, good just by it self, buttery, flaky, yummy.
So no more sorry’s for today – and no more talking 🙂 get your English high tea mood on with a hint of Canadian syrup and enjoy :)!
Oat and maple scones
Makes about 8 large scones
80g oats- 220g whole wheat flour
- 150 all-purpose flour
- 1 very heaped tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 120g butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup mil
- 1 egg and oats for finishing
Preheat the oven to 220C and place a sheet of baking paper on a baking sheet- Mix together the oats, flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
- Dice the butter and mix it with the dry ingredients with your fingertips to make breadcrumbs.
- Whisk the egg together with the milk.
- Mix the mixtures and the maple syrup and the dry ingredients together to make a stiff dough. Add more flour if the dough is still too sticky and add more milk if you think the dough it too dry. (I had to add some more flour)
- Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll it out to about 2.5 – 3cm thick. Use a
biscuit cutter to cut out eight rounds. - Put them on the baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with oats.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for about 20 – 25 minutes or until golden.
- Serve by themselves, or with jam (and maybe whip cream?) and enjoy :)!
Let me know what you think? And what is your favourite bake for a high tea?
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