There was a time when flying home to San Francisco after a visit to my east coast family would leave my kids so crazed with jet lagged — and me so exhausted from their 3 AM wake ups — that I could fall asleep while they were jumping on me. Those were the days when I added espresso powder to the cookie dough — and then didn’t share those power-packed cookies with the kids.
Those days are over. Now we fly pretty blithely back and forth, the kids do a lot of the baking and even more of the eating. So when we returned from Connecticut late Saturday night and Eli suggested we make scones the next morning, I said, “Sure, you make them.”
And so he did.
We start with a recipe from Joy of Cooking that is so simple, a jet-lagged eight-year-old can make it. Unlike most scone recipes that use cold butter, this one uses melted butter and so stirs together really easily. The original calls for raisins or dates, but we tend to add dried cherries, almonds, and chocolate chips. I like to think the oatmeal keeps it healthy.
Preheat the oven to 450 and line a baking pan with parchment paper.
Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Stir in:
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup raisins, dried cranberries, chopped dates or dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped almonds or walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Whisk together, then add all at once:
10 tablespoons melted butter
1 large egg
1/3 cup milk
Mix the dough together until the dry ingredients are all moistened; it will be very sticky. Turn it out onto a lightly-floured surface and pat the dough into a 8″ round about 3/4″ thick. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges and transfer the wedges to the baking sheet, leaving them about an inch apart from each other.
Bake until lightly browned, 10-12 minutes. Let cool briefly on a rack or serve hot from the oven.