Lemon-Raisin Scones – My Son’s 1st Pop Up Bakery

Lemon-Raisin Scones on a Cooling Rack | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

Last week my husband got a craving for scones. Instead of turning to me, or making them himself, he asked our 12-year-old son to bake them. He challenged Charlie to have hot scones ready by the time he left for work the next morning. 7:30 a.m. is an hour my boys rarely see, because they are deep in REM sleep. Agreeing to this request was based on one thing, and one thing alone: money.

My sons get an allowance, but it isn’t always enough to satisfy all the activities and toys they want, so the thought of a few extra bucks in his pocket was enough to get him out of bed. And, he loves to bake, so it wasn’t much of a hardship.

The night before, he picked a recipe from Baking with Julia, set up his mise en place (a fancy way to say ingredients and equipment), then set his alarm for 5:30 a.m. He woke me up at 6 a.m., so I could sit in the kitchen, bleary eyed, with my coffee and answer any questions he had.

It was quite something to watch him navigate the recipe. He didn’t know what a pastry blender was or what cornmeal looked like, so the instructions of “cutting the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until is resembles cornmeal” meant nothing to him. I showed him a jar of cornmeal, handed him the pastry tool and off he went.

Scones are really quite easy to make, but it does require a gentle touch, so they don’t come out too tough. He did it perfectly.

My husband is a big fan of raisins, so Charlie folded them in during the last steps and added a bit of zest to the dough as well. He made an entire batch, which was way more than my husband could eat, so Charlie got the idea of texting our family members, who live nearby, to tell them he had hot scones coming out of the oven and he was selling them.

The price is fair, the product is amazing, the baker is adorable and he sold out for the day. By the time the scones were cooling on the racks and his customers were showing up at the back door, he had crawled into my bed and fallen back to sleep. I was left to run the store, which was just fine with me.

The scones were such a success that he’s now taking pre-orders for all kinds of baked goods and has a schedule of when he has to deliver the goods. It’s the best summer job I can think of and he’s going to be a skilled baker by the time he hits 8th grade. Could I be any prouder of him? Nope! Not possible. He’s my fabulous baker boy.

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Rhubarb Pie

Rhubarb Pie with Lattice Crust on a baking sheet

Today my oldest son graduated from 8th Grade. It struck me yesterday as no biggie, just another last day of school. Today, I find myself thinking about him in a new way. He’s not a small child anymore. This was made clear when I saw him accepting his 8th grade diploma and he was taller than all of his teachers. What, when did that happen? He’s a high schooler now, and that is just plain crazy. Up until this moment, he was still my little boy, just barely able to function on his own. Today I am faced with the fact that he is charging toward manhood at a dizzying pace. I’m trying to be ready, but really I’m not sure yet. The up-side to this realization is that now I’ll have him do more laundry, cleaning, cooking and all the things we adults live for.

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Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Rice Treats for Valentine’s Day

Crispy rice treats recipe | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

Need something quick and fun to make with your kids for Valentine’s Day? Really, the kids are just a foil for my own craving to make something silly and delicious. As you may remember, these are not the first crispy rice treats to appear on ZoeBakes. It’s a bit of a thing with me. I pretend I’m doing it for the kids, but I eat most of them. This version (my favorite so far) is inspired by the “compost” cookie at the Momofuku Milk Bar in NYC. I added everything but the kitchen sink: pretzels, oreos, milk chocolate and potato chips. All those sweet and salty snacks tossed with buttery marshmallows are seriously tasty. You can add any of your favorite snack foods to the recipe, just chop them up fairly small, so you can press the treats into a heart shaped cookie cutter.

The winners of last weeks giveaway are announced at the bottom of this post.

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Chocolate Caramel Monkey Bread Muffins

Chocolate caramel monkey bread muffins

I think monkey bread was the first thing my younger brothers ever baked. They loved the gooey mess of making them as much as the caramel goodness of eating them. Truth told, when I leave the house for any amount of time, my husband makes them with my own boys. He waits until I leave, because he knows the ovens won’t be in use and he can sneak the tube of biscuits into the house. Yep, I’ve found the discarded tubes in my house. As a result I never get to eat them, which I think is part of his master plan. Here is my twist on the classic with chocolate tucked in homemade biscuits. I’ve baked them as individual Monkey Bread Muffins to make them even more festive for a party or Sunday brunch.

Some of you may know that I’ve partnered with Gold Medal Flour for my bread website, breadin5.com. It was a natural fit, since we always tested our bread recipes with their flour. Gold Medal is the most widely available and it has consistent results loaf, after loaf. They have recently redesigned their flour bags and sent me a bunch of samples to take a look at. One of the new designs is for the self-rising flour. I can’t use this in my yeasted bread recipes, but I love making biscuits with it. The results are perfect every time and it means having to hunt for less ingredients. 

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Halloween Mummy Cakes

Halloween Mummy Cakes | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

Every year at this time, I try to find some new ghoulish and creepy way to terrify my sweet young boys (in a motherly-love kind of way). Nothing like a coffin shaped cake, with a mummy laying on top to make them squeamish and thrilled to go at it with a fork. The vanilla cake, raspberry filling and chocolate ganache on a bed of oreo crumbs, may be spine tingling enough for kids on Halloween, but tasty enough for the parents as well. Read More

Homemade Caramel Apples

Homemade caramel apples | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

My boys are called to the apple bins at the grocery store these days like a siren song. Framing every bin are rows of gooey caramel apples, studded with nuts, candies and chocolate. Seriously, I can’t blame them for being drawn in, they are irresistible. But, then you bite into them and they are always just a touch disappointing. The apples are usually soft and the caramel is cloyingly sweet and tastes like it was from the previous generation. I convinced my boys to walk by without taking one, but only after promising to make them some at home. We picked fresh, crisp, juicy apples (Honeycrisp, Sweet Tango or a variety that is a bit tart). The caramel is easy to make and is rich, creamy, gooey and not over-the-top sweet. I like them with salted peanuts pressed into the caramel, but the boys like the apples dipped in caramel with no other interruptions. Read More