Devonshire Cream

Another Christmas Tea Favorite is Devonshire Cream.  Serve it with scones, lemon curd, and Jam.

Devonshire Cream – Robbin P.

Yield: 6 cups

Ingredients:

• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Instructions:

Cream the cream cheese in a cool bowl until soft.  Add and whip the cream, sugar and salt alternately until firm peaks form.  Will keep in a very cold fridge overnight.  You will have to re-whip if you keep it for more than 24 hours because it does separate.  Will keep for 3-5 days though.

Printable Recipe

 

Cranberry Scones

Cranberry Scones and Lemon Curd

Cranberry Scones have been a tradition at our church’s Christmas Tea.  I had plenty of help in making 600 scones for the occasion, which are now all safely stowed in various freezers waiting to be thawed and reheated just before serving. We split it into two baking days.  We completed 450 on the first day and the remaining 192 on the second baking day. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera to take pictures of the process and had to make them again (what a shame right?)  I could have used the recipe for 8 large scones, but no, I made 32 and gave some away.  My children enjoyed the cranberry scones and lemon curd for an after school snack.  The only change I made on this blog was that I did not chop the cranberries (and I used more- but only because it was for personal use) Serve with Lemon Curd

Here is the recipe:

Cranberry Scones- Robbin

Yields: 12 servings (small scones) or 8 large

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup butter, at room temperature
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped
• 2 Tbsp sugar in the raw for topping (brush scone with egg white wash first)

PREPARATION:

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together.  Cut butter into dry ingredients with  pastry cutter, until they resemble fine crumbles.  Whisk eggs and whipping cream together.  Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients and cranberries. Stir gently with fork until dough holds together.  With hands, bring dough together into a ball.  Pour out onto a floured surface and knead gently for about 10-15 times.  You want to handle the dough as little as possible or the scones will become tough.

Form the dough into a 8 inch circle (or roll out to about 3/4′ thick  Cut with biscuit cutter, or into squares or triangles as you prefer).  Repeat with remaining dough until it is all used up. (If you are using the recipe which serves 32 large scones you will split the large ball of dough into 4 even pieces, each piece will make 8 large scones)

Place scones on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet (of if you are using silicone baking mats, you can skip spraying the pan) leaving about 3/4:-1″ between each scone.  Bake at 400 F for 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown.  Cool on racks. Serve warm with Lemon Curd.

FREEZE: Or store airtight and freeze for up to one month.  If frozen, place from freezer into heavy duty foil pans and bake at 300 for about 15 minutes.  Or defrost in open air to keep from getting moist and bake for 5 minutes at 325.

Cranberry Scones (3x batch)

Yield 48 scones 32 large scones

• 10 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 sticks plus 6 Tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 8 eggs
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 3/4 cup chopped cranberries
• 1 cup sugar in raw
• 2 egg whites for egg wash
• extra flour for rolling out

Printable Recipe

Cranberry Scones and Lemon Curd

Scone Ingredients

Helpful Notes/Tips:

If you have parchment paper or even better silicone baking sheets (silpat is a great brand that I highly recommend, but they are pricey.) to place on your cookie sheets, it will prevent the bottom of the scone from browning too quickly during baking, plus they will be easier to remove from the pan.  Sugar in the Raw is easy to find and a great finishing sugar – I found them in a convenient packet size and two packets will be enough sugar to top 8 large scones.  Before brushing the scones with egg white wash, separate them into individual wedges so the sides also get the egg wash and sugar.  If you have one of the plastic sheets that has circles of different size printed on it, you will find it an easy task to form a circle, and your scones will be more uniform.

Lemon Curd

Where have I been?   life has interrupted me several times in the past weeks and has made it difficult to blog – Plus, my husband and I are trying to lose weight and it’s been hard to make “naughty stuff” if you can’t eat it all!

As I mentioned before, I am on the food committee for our church’s Christmas Tea – Scones, served with Lemon Curd, Devonshire Cream the works!  Thankfully I am not alone in the endeavor and help has been easy to find! So happy!

I volunteered to make the lemon curd for the tea, as I already had experience making it with my wonderful friend Robbin, who headed up the Christmas Tea Food Prep for years – but alas all good things must come to and end and my friend is moving to Washington State.  Her touch will be dearly missed!

Lemon Curd is actually not hard to make, just expect that your arm is going to fall off stirring.  I made one big batch today and have 8 more batches to follow. A large batch will yield 9 cups of lemon curd.  That serves 72 (2 Tbsp size) servings.  The end goal: Lemon Curd for 600!  Lemon Curd is served with warm scones (Cranberry Scones – recipe coming soon).  Living in Southern California has it’s benefits.  One of them is fresh lemons.  My friend KC has a wonderful lemon tree in her yard and last summer she invited me to pick lemons.  Her lemons were large- some of them almost the size of grapefruit.  I did research that you can freeze fresh lemon juice and lemon zest – so that is what I did.  Thank you KC for your generous contribution.

Here is the recipe for a single recipe (not the batch- 3x the original recipe)

Lemon Curd

Yield 3 cups

24 (2 Tbsp) servings

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs
• 2/3 cup lemon juice (approximately 2-3 lemons)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 tsp lemon zest (approximately 1 lemon)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)

Preparation:

Place the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a sauce pan. (To zest, invest in a good micro-plane it makes the grating of the lemon easy – zest by the way is grated lemon peel, so wash your lemons first).

Use an immersion blender to combine the egg, sugar, lemon mixture (Immersion blenders cost around  30-50 dollars and are a great investment for a kitchen).  The mixture will be foamy.

Place the pot over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk in a circle eight fashion.  The bubbles will slowly subside and the mixture will thicken.

Continue stirring until it comes to a good boil.
Turn your burner off and remove the curd from the heat.

Cut the softened butter into smaller chunks and add a few at a time and mix them into the lemon curd with a whisk until the butter is completely dissolved.  Finish with remaining butter.  Whisk to combine.
Pour the lemon curd into a plastic container and allow to cool completely before covering with a lid and cooling in the refrigerator.

NOTES:  Lemon Curd will keep for 1 week in the refrigerator or can be frozen for up to 3 months.

In case you were making a big batch (say you really love your friends and wanted to make them some for Christmas) Here are the ingredients you will need:

• 15 eggs
• 2 cups lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best)
• 3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon zest
• 1 1/2 cups of butter (3 sticks)

Follow the directions above.

Printable Recipe

Just in case you wanted to know how many ingredients you need to feed 600:

135 eggs, 18 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice, 27 cups of sugar, 28 sticks of butter, 3 1/2 cups lemon zest

Ingredients

In a heavy saucepan

Well blended

stir constantly over medium heat

Thickened Curd

Bring to boil

Off Heat add butter

Finished Product

Christmas Tea Salad

Okay okay, I know you have been sitting on pins and needles have you not?  Probably not, but in case you want to know.  “Becky, what is the salad for the tea going to be?” Well, it is neither of the previous posts… HAHA right? Well, not entirely!  What we will do is make the Blue Cheese Pear Salad and add the thin strips of red or yellow peppers and also use the dressing from the Claim Jumper Salad.  I hope it is a happy union!  I have salad coming out my ears now, because I have all these leftovers, but I’m not complaining.  It truly is okay!

In case you are interested what the third salad was that we tested it is Trisha’s Festive Tossed Salad.  The dressing is very potent though, so we decided not to go with it.

2010 Christmas Tea Salad

Serves 6

Salad Ingredients:

• 6 cups Spring Salad Mix
• 1/2 pear, cored and chopped
• 3/4 cup feta cheese
• 1/2 avocado — peeled, pitted and diced
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/2 cup red or yellow bell pepper strips

Candied Pecans:

• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup pecans

Citrus Dressing Ingredients: (halved from the original)

• 1 1/2 cups soybean oil
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. honey
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 ounce dehydrated onion
• 3/4 teaspoons dry tarragon
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon fresh garlic
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon onion powder

Directions:

Dressing: Whisk dressing ingredients well and refrigerate to allow the flavors to develop.
Before serving, whisk well to combine again.  Serve 2 Tbsp of dressing with each serving of salad.

Candied Pecans: Heat a skillet over medium heat, stir 1/4 cup of sugar together with the pecans. Continue stirring gently until sugar has melted and caramelized the pecans. Transfer  the nuts onto waxed paper. Allow to cool, and break into pieces.

For the salad: In a large serving bowl, layer lettuce, pears, blue cheese, avocado, bell pepper strips,and green onions. Pour the dressing over salad, sprinkle with candied pecans, and serve.

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