Recipe: Raspberry scones

Following my tartelettes aux framboises, I still had some wild raspberries in the refrigerator, so this morning I made scones with them.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk

This recipe is super easy -- soften the butter, throw everything together, mix it up, plop it onto a some sort of a baking surface, and bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes.

For this batch, I mixed the above ingredients then threw in a handful of our wild raspberries, and promptly mashed them into little more than a deep purple pigment.

The finished product, above, turned out well despite the scone dough looking pathetic. Four stars.

Recipe: Tartelettes aux framboises

I made my tartelettes aux framboises this afternoon/evening for my family and some friends that came over. I used these 2.6" carbon steel tart molds I got on Amazon for $15 earlier this year, but the same recipe can be done with larger molds -- I have some ~5" molds for bigger tartes, but these are bite-sized and therefore more fun.

Butter Crust Pastry Dough

First is the butter crust pastry dough. The ingredients are:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 fl oz ice water

Directions:

1. Pour one cup of flour in the food processor
2. Cut in the frozen butter
3. Cover with the rest of the flour and remaining ingredients
4. Pulse the food processor a few times, then turn on until the dough becomes visibly crumbly (about 30 sec to 1 minute)
5. Dump dough onto the counter and gently roll into a ball, gathering all crumbs.
6. Enclose in saran wrap. Put into the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. This keeps the butter firm.
7. Form into tarte molds and bake at around 300°F for ~20 minutes.

I'll note here that my actual recipe has no directions, so I played with temp and time a bit. The results from today's bake didn't really hit the Maillard reaction.

Raw crusts from a bake a couple years ago. The crusts are aligned to the mold edges with care. But it is not to be.

Tarte Sweet Cheese Mixture

Filling poured into larger tarte molds

While the crusts are baking, prepare the filling

• 8 ounces cream cheese or fromage blanc
• 2 tbsp crème fraîche or sour cream
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 0.25 tsp salt
• 0.25 tsp vanilla extract
• 0.5 tsp lemon zest

 (I have just used cream cheese and sour cream since I don't readily have access to fromage blanc or crème fraîche.) Chuck all of these into a bowl and mix well (eg, with an electric hand mixer). Spoon into the baked tarte crusts and continue to bake at around 300°F until you no longer want to bake them anymore 🤷‍♂️.

C'est la vie.

My presentation definitely leaves something to be desired here. Notably, the crusts shrink when you bake them; I haven't tried using pie weights, and frankly, I don't care too much. I take a very utilitarian approach to my baking, so purists can go fly a kite.

To top off these tartelettes, garnish with a couple berries, or if you are really just looking for a way to eat some delicious raspberries, use your tartes as raspberry delivery devices.

The tartelettes at the top of this post are the ones I did today, and they used raspberries I picked from our back yard. All the other photos are from just after my trip to Chamonix and elsewhere France two years ago.