you always remember your first time

I was searching for something else in my inbox and found this in a message I wrote to Ida four years ago:

Last night there was a terrible accident with buttercream.

Which also means I made some, for the first time ever, and it's wicked awesome. When I started beating in the butter it got grainy, and then smoothed out nicely... and then dissolved into this spongey mush of buttered sugar floating in slimy eggwhite: So. Totally. Gross. I vaguely remembered a recipe that said "Keep beating! It'll smooth out!" and of course I thought that I'd be the one exception and it would never ever work for me, but the clouds parted and all of a sudden it emulsified (emulsed?) into a perfectly smooth cream in this amazing moment of culinary drama. I recommend it.

I tried to figure out how many pounds of buttercream I've made since then but when it comes to butter I go all Watership Down and can't count past four (which happens to be the number of different flavors of leftover buttercream in my freezer right now).

Happy-Presidents'-Day scones

They're a little late to be end-of-holidays baking, but here's what I did with the ingredients left over from a dessert auction recipe plus some other stuff (can't remember what I bought the cream for...):

Orange-Almond-Cranberry Cream Scones

1-1/2 c. flour
1/2 almond meal
1/4 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. orange-flavored dried cranberries*
minced zest of 1 orange

1-1/4 c. heavy cream

2 T. oat germ

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Sift together dry ingredients. Stir in cranberries & zest, making sure they're unclumped and coated with flour. Stir in cream until just combined -- do not overmix (dough will be wet).

Scoop into 1/4 c. balls; place on an ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly. Smear tops with a little more cream, and sprinkle with oat germ and a little more sugar. (Raw/turbinado is best, but white sugar is just fine.) Bake 12-15 minutes.

Eat. And eat and eat and eat.

*I didn't intend to buy the orange-flavored but their label looked the same as the regular. At any rate, Trader Joe's orangey berries don't have creepy chemicals and they worked really well in this recipe.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I just bought something called a "cake humidor."

baked goods

Last week I made a batch of end-of-the-holidays cookies:  cocoa, bittersweet chips, ginger, cinnamon, coconut, salted brown butter... basically, everything that was left in my pantry after holiday baking, minus the acorn squash.

If you can believe it, they taste even better straight from the freezer a week later.  I may have a new tradition.

So long, 2007.  You were sweet and weird and you look best in the soft glow of hindsight.  I'm ready to re-stock.