Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones #BreadBakers

Grated butter and cheese add little pockets of flavor and flakiness to these Guinness Cheddar Scones. They are perfect for breakfast or snack time and go great with soup!

I’ve baked with stout quite a few times and love how much depth and flavor a dark brew adds to any batter or dough. For example, check out my mocha stout brownies, London Porter cake and oatmeal stout loaf, just to name a few. All lovely! 

If there is any product more iconically Irish then Guinness Stout, I don’t know what it would be. Anytime Irish teams are playing in a tournament, ubiquitous Guinness shows up as a sponsor. When our host for this month’s Bread Bakers chose Irish bread as our theme for March, I knew I wanted to use Guinness in the recipe. 

NOTE: Start this recipe far enough in advance of when you've like to serve them to leave plenty of time for freezing the scones before baking. Depending on your freezer, a couple of hours ought to do it. 

Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones

This recipe is adapted from Coley Cooks. It’s been a while since I saved it so the author has updated the post name and the URL and these are now called biscuits, which I find very odd for an Irish recipe. Back when I found it, they were called, quite rightly, Irish scones with a URL to match.  Whatever you call them, bake these. They got four thumbs up from my family!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups or 312g flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 cup or 240ml Guinness, cold

1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, FROZEN, plus 2 tablespoons (28g), melted

7 oz or 200g mature cheddar or extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Method

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

Using a box grater, grate the frozen butter, then quickly transfer it to the flour mixture and use a fork to gently mix and coat all the butter pieces with flour. 

Add the grated cheese and mix to combine, being sure to coat all pieces with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the Dijon mustard and Guinness.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beer mixture.

Carefully mix until it forms a shaggy dough.  Do not overmix. 

Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface, then roll out into a long strip about 7x14 in or 18x36cm.

Fold one side half way up, adding in any loose bits.

Then fold the other side over top, like a letter.

 

Rotate the dough 90 degrees, roll out and repeat the two letter folds again. Rotate again and fold for the final two times.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in or 1 cm thick. Cut the scones out with a cutter and place them on a pan lined with baking parchment.  

Roll the dough out again and cut scones until you run out of dough. As you can see, I got 14 scones out of my dough.

Place the baking pan in the freezer. Freeze till solid or overnight. Once frozen, transfer the scones to a sealed bag. For maximum rising and flakiness, the dough needs to be kept very cold. The beauty of this recipe is that once the scones are frozen, you can bake as many or as few as you’d like. 

Preheat your oven to 400° F or 200°C.

When the oven is preheated, remove the number of scones you’d like to bake from the freezer, and put them on a parchment or silicone-lined pan then put it into the oven immediately.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the scones has risen well and are golden brown, rotating the pan halfway through so they brown evenly.

Brush the tops with the melted butter.

Serve warm with extra butter, if desired. I'll be honest. I only buttered the one you see below. They really don't need it. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s time for Bread Bakers, always the second Tuesday of the month, and Irish bread is our theme. Check out all the great recipes we are sharing ahead of St. Patrick’s Day below! Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Barmbrack by Magical Ingredients
• Boxty by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Belfast Baps by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Flakey Cheddar Guinness Scones by Food Lust People Love
• Irish Bread Rolls by Sneha’s Recipe
• Irish Soda Farls by Palatable Pastime
• Waterford Blaas by A Messy Kitchen
• Irish Oat Flapjacks by Cook with Renu
• Sourdough Irish Soda Bread by What Smells So Good?

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Homemade Celery Salt

This tasty homemade celery salt recipe takes advantage of the celery leaves by drying them out then grinding them with salt. It's easy and full of flavor!

Whenever I needed celery for a recipe (looking at you, chicken and sausage gumbo!) when I was first on my own and cooking in my own kitchen, I’d cut the leaves off and chuck them. After all, the recipe called for stalks of celery, which I assumed, naively perhaps, did not include the leaves. 

Then we moved overseas and in many countries celery was hard to get. Often imported from colder climates, it was also expensive. I learned to not only use the whole bunch, with leaves, but to chop and freeze any leftovers in a snug bag for future recipes. As long as you are going to sauté the chopped celery for a soup or stew, frozen works perfectly. 

Another great use for those leaves which make them (and their flavor) last a long time is homemade celery salt. Store-bought celery salt is made with celery seeds, which have a very strong flavor. Celery salt made with the dried leaves is a bit more subtle but the celery flavor it definitely prominent. And if, like young me, you were throwing out or composting the leaves, now you can feel good about using the whole plant!

Homemade Celery Salt

If you don’t have flakey sea salt, you can substitute regular salt but use half the amount or your celery salt may be too salty. I use a clean coffee bean grinder that I reserve for spices for this job but you could use a mortar and pestle or a blender. This recipe makes about 2 tablespoons of celery salt.

Ingredients 

1 cup celery leaves tightly-packed, 56g

1 teaspoon flakey sea salt (like Maldon) 

Method

Pick the leaves from the celery, leaving the stalks behind. Use both the outer dark leaves and the pale inner leaves. Rinse the leaves two or three times in a salad spinner, then spin them dry. 

Lay the leaves out on a clean towel then roll it up. Unroll and leave to air dry for at least 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200°F or 93°C degrees. 

Line a baking pan with baking parchment or a silicone liner and arrange the celery leaves single layer in the pan. 

Bake 20 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking time so that the leaves dry evenly. Remove from oven and cool. 

Transfer to your coffee/spice grinder and add the salt.

Process until finely ground. Make sure it’s completely cool before storing in a sealed container or spice shaker.  

This homemade celery salt is excellent for any recipe that calls for celery salt. It’s also a tasty topping for boiled eggs and cream cheese filled celery sticks. Isn't it a pretty color?

Enjoy!

It's Sunday FunDay so today my friends and I are playing like Sesame Street. This post is brought to you by C for Celery! Check out all the celery recipes below. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Apple Celery Soup from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Bacon, Celery, & Pecan Stuffed Celery from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Celery and Kale Paratha from Cook with Renu
• Celery Steak from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Gin and Celery Tonic from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Homemade Celery Salt from Food Lust People Love
• Pulled Chicken & Celery Sandwiches  by Sneha's Recipe
• Slow-Roasted Celery from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Stir-Fried Shrimp with Chinese Celery from Palatable Pastime

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Banana Jam Muffins #MuffinMonday

These banana jam muffins are made with homemade banana jam – so easy! – swirled through buttermilk muffin batter then baked to golden perfection. 

I was awake in the middle of the night last week, as I often am a few days before Muffin Monday when I don’t have a muffin planned. I ran through the options of 1. what I already own ingredient-wise and 2. what my family is most likely to eat. 

The bottom line is that sweet muffins are more popular than savory so I discarded thoughts of Boursin, cheddar and blue cheese. That left me with blackberries (which I used last month so never mind), raspberries, pears and bananas. Pretty sure I've baked muffins with each of those before and several with bananas.

And then suddenly a thought popped into my head: Can a person make ripe bananas into jam? Is banana jam even a thing? Yes, my middle-of-the-night brain is a weird and wonderful thing. Banana jam was the first thing I googled as soon as I got out of bed that next morning.

You’ve seen my title so you know it is a THING. I’m here to tell you that it’s also delicious. I only made enough for these muffins but next time I’m going to double or treble the recipe because it would be lovely spread on toast with peanut butter. If you decide to do that right now, (and I highly recommend you do) store it in a clean jar in the refrigerator. This banana jam is not acidic enough to be safe for very long as a canned jam. 

Banana Jam Muffins

The banana jam can be made ahead. Just store it in a clean vessel in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake. No buttermilk? Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice or white vinegar to your measuring cup then pour in the milk to the half-cup mark.  The jam recipe is adapted from one on FOOD52.

Ingredients

For the banana jam:

2 small ripe bananas (about 4.75 oz or 135g, post-peeling)

1/3 cup, firmly packed, or 66g light brown sugar

1 tablespoon lime juice

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tablespoon aged rum

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the 6 muffins:

1 1/4 cups or 156g flour

1/3 cup or 66g sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup or 120ml buttermilk

1 egg

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil

1/2 cup or 150g banana jam

Method

First, we’ll make the jam. Combine the bananas and sugar in a small pot. Before you put it on the stove, mash the bananas with a fork until the fruit is chunky and the sugar syrupy. 

Set over medium-low heat and bring to a simmer. Add the lime juice and salt. 

Continue to cook at a steady simmer - stirring occasionally - for about 10 minutes, until the jam thickens. When you can pull a spatula through it and the gap doesn’t run closed immediately, it’s done. 

Remove the bananas from the heat and stir in the rum and vanilla.

Set the banana jam aside aside to cool while you assemble your muffin ingredients and prepare the muffin pan.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 6-cup muffin pan by greasing it with oil or butter or lining it with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

In a smaller mixing bowl whisk the egg, milk and oil together. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl. Fold to combine. Do not over mix.

 Gently swirl in the banana jam.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan. 

Q1. Did I over fill these cups? That depends on how you feel about very large muffin tops. Q2. Could you bake this batter into 7 or even 8 muffins? Absolutely. Should you? See question 1. 

I stand by my six muffin decision.

Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Yeah, they touch. Fight me. 

Remove from the pan after they’ve cooled a few minutes and put them on a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container. 

Enjoy!

It's the last Monday of the month so that means it's time for Muffin Monday! Check out the great muffin recipes we have for you today. 

• Banana Jam Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Cream Cheese Filled Red Velvet Muffins from Magical Ingredients
• Italian Herb Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Savory Breakfast Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Stuffed Cinnamon Streusel Muffins from Passion Kneaded

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

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