mona lisas and mad hatters

Lately I am having the worst case of travel-lust. I am endlessly dreaming of trips I would like to take, nostalgically recalling trips I've already taken and pseudo-planning a trip I'm ready to depart on at a moment's notice. Sometimes circumstances just lend themselves nicely to fantasizing about traveling to places unknown. Recently my pseudo-travels took me to London where I came across multiple recipes for scones. The discovery of  exciting new recipes always makes my faux traveling totally worth my while

[recipe for madelines coming soon.]

 

I usually have two realities going on in my head at any given time, when I was little I had imaginary friends [I know, most people only get one, I had three] I KNOW, I mean I really do know.  Anyway, my "friends" and I loved having tea parties, and scones were always on the menu [usually shaped from white bread and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar].Tea and scones just naturally go together like, [well tea and scones] and I find myself at times still having a "spot of tea" on a lazy afternoon.

 Some of my best "high tea" memories come from places I have visited [yes, really been there] Empress hotel in Victoria, B.C., The Greenbriar in West Virginia, the Fairmont in San Francisco, Queen Mary in Seattle, Prenzlauer Berg Cafe' in Berlin, Russian Tea Room in New York, Fairmont Hamilton Princess in Bermuda...oh, sorry I'm around the bend again, but then that's just my nature, who would I be if I did not wander off, what would people say about me then?

This is one of the first scone recipes I ever used, and it remains a favorite. One of the charming things about these scones is how easy they are to make [hell-ooo, one bowl, one spoon].
The dough is a little sticky and clingy, but you soon work through that and it becomes manageable and quite beautiful then bakes to a delicate-moist-fruit studded-vanilla sugar topped-doesn'tevenneedcreamjamorlemoncurd-best-scone-I-ever-ate scone! These  babies freeze beautifully, so make an extra batch to keep in the freezer and heat up whenever the "high tea cravings" hit.

If you love scones, this is your baby, baby!

strawberry scones (makes 8)

(go here for recipe)