oatmeal scones

I've been on an oats kick lately, from granola and yogurt to gooey oatmeal pancakes and now these, oatmeal scones with dried cranberries and white chocolate.

I baked these scones this morning, having woken up feeling both energized and defiled by my late night at the Pallas stripper contest. (Don't judge me until after you've eaten these scones.) The experience was so out of my usual orbit that it was necessarily exciting, if a little skeezy. I sat at the table next to my friend Brandee (a Stripper-oke veteran), in awe of what those women can do around a pole. They're athletes, and saying that isn't some hackneyed, post-feminist excuse for an activity that actually debases women (though I saw evidence of that, too)--the core muscle strength, flexibility and grace of the dancers is jaw-dropping. I was startled to find myself at one point with my mouth wide open, staring in unbridled amazement.

Plus, once you've seen a couple of vaginas the nudity gets less noticeable. At least to those of us who have vaginas and find them mildly disgusting at the best of times. But we were talking about scones, right?

So the stripper contest made me want to both jet to the gym to increase the flexibility in my hamstrings and reassure myself that domesticity is not divorced from sex appeal. Hence these seductive scones...and the 9am trip to the gym with T (who's working out to prepare for a shirtless scene in a new movie project--lady readers, keep your pants on).

Nubby and flaky on the outside, rich and dense on the inside, studded with soft raw oats and tangy cranberries and sweet, melty bits of white chocolate, these scones are like a wedge of the best possible oatmeal cookie married with the superlative homemade granola bar. I started with an old Gourmet recipe, but these scones are divorced enough from the originals to be called my own. The significant changes I made were to use self-rising flour with a bit of extra baking soda; dramatically increase the spice quantity and variety; add some wheat bran for fiber, dried cranberries and white chocolate chips; reduce the butter and include a couple tablespoons of organic vegetable shortening to increase the flakiness; and cut them into magnificent craggy triangles, homey enough in look to be comforting and full enough in flavor to be special.

By all means play with this recipe, leaving out the wheat bran or using whole wheat flour, brushing the scone tops with milk, brown sugar and oats before baking, omitting the fruit and chocolate, changing the spicing and making them savory with paprika and cheddar. These are yummy. Bake them and eat them, and do a little sexy jig in the kitchen while no one's looking.

Homey Oatmeal Scones

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and line a baking pan with a sheet of parchment paper.



2. In a bowl or your food processor, combine 1 2/3 C self-rising flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/3 C wheat bran, 1 tsp cinnamon and a 1/4 tsp each nutmeg and cloves, and 2/3 C brown sugar (I was out and ended up using powdered sugar with no problems). Add 1 1/3 C raw oats and pulse 15 times.



3. Add a handful each of dried cranberries and white chocolate chips and mix well.



4. Cut 1 cold stick of butter and 2-3 T of vegetable shortening into 1 T pieces. Add to the flour mixture and pulse until the texture resembles cornmeal with a few pea-sized lumps of butter. You can also do this with your hands or two butter knives.



5. Gradually add in 2/3 to 1 C milk, buttermilk or cream. Pulse or hand mix until just combined. You want the mixture to be moist enough to hold together, but not wet. The dough shouldn't stick to your hands when you pat it out to the shape the scones.



6. Dump the shaggy mess onto a very lightly floured counter top and knead a few times. Don't over-knead unless you like very dense pastry.



7. Pat the dough into a thick circle (maybe 8 inches across and 1 1/2 inches high) and cut into eight triangles. Place the scones on the sheet with a little space in between them. Bake for approximately 16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a scone comes out clean.



8. Let cool to warm and enjoy. I like these without butter or jam, but I'm sure they'd be lovely with salty butter or a dab of marmalade.