Game of Scones

I competed in the Pastry Chicago Scone Competition yesterday at the French Pastry School. I made Banana Peanut Butter and Chocolate Covered Raisin Scones, which I thought turned out pretty well considering I've never made a scone in my life! Scones are supposed to be biscuit-like, and mine might have been a little too muffin-like. But I still thought they tasted pretty good! Those are mine above (#9). I didn't win :( but hopefully I will at one of them! There's a cookie one in June, so I'll probably do that one also. 

Here are a few of the other competitors. The square ones were made by a Kendall Culinary School student. Show-off! Haha oooh just kidding. 

So I actually feel kind of dumb, because I had given 5 scones to the judges, and as I was putting the other 5 scones out for display, a heard a girl ask if she could switch her scones because the ones she gave the judges looked better. And the lady was like "oh yes you want to give the judges the better looking ones of course". And I was thinking that they are judging the ones on display for the looks, and then just judging the ones you give to them for taste. But the ones on display are just for us to look at I guess. SOO I didn't even give them the prettiest ones! At least now I know. Duhh.

#6 was the 1st place winner. They look pretty neat I guess. I need to be more creative and not so basic with my recipes I guess. She had a bunch of crazy steps involved, and I feel like those are always the ones that win. 

We also got to watch a demo of how to make scones. It was pretty simple actually, and Chef Joel Reno talked a lot about the ingredients and how they are really important to making it a good scone, or anything really. I definitely know that after seeing a few of these demos. 

These are his Blue Cheese Onion Pecan scones, and they were really good. The texture was really similar to mine (fluffy muffin like), and he also said having enough moisture was very important cause scones can be too dry a lot of times. 

Soo that was my Saturday morning! Today is Brandon's birthday, but he has a final tomorrow! So he didn't really want to do anything crazy and needs to study most of the day. I bought him a Game of Thrones card game and we're going to get Popeye's for dinner (his favorite). 

I wish we could be getting some Greek's Pizza for dinner, but it's far far away in Muncie, Indiana. This Wings pizza we got last time we were in town was so tasty. I used to work there, so that's probably why I love it so much. Actually, any food place I have worked at is usually somewhere I want to go to when I'm in town. Must be a nostalgic thing. Applebee's, Tradewinds, Frasca (that's in Chicago, but I still wanna go! I'm actually going tomorrow night for Book Club)

These are the BEST donuts in Anderson, Indiana. Deluxe Donuts. The Manager's Special is the best one, with maple frosting and chopped peanuts. Also the Dutch Crunch donut holes are a cake donut, with crumbly crunchyness on the oustide. I always want to get these when we go to visit family, and they are super cheap which makes them even better! Like 60 cents a donut. Amazing.

This picture looks a little gross, but it's a Johnny Appleseed burger from Rockit. We ordered delivery (I know, lazy) and discovered that the burgers are really good! The meat is always cooked a perfect medium, and it's nice and juicy. The toppings on the burger are brie, chopped apples, and pecan aioli. Plus it comes with sweet potato fries! A very delicious, fattening dinner. 

I got the recipe for these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip cookies out of my Food and Wine magazine (which I don't get anymore, but now I get Rachel Ray's mag and I like it!). They tell you to chill the dough overnight so the flavors blend together. When I took them out of the oven, they had basically just flattened out and spread to a very thin cookie. I thought I messed something up! But I think they are supposed to be really flat and crispy. It was hard to not burn them cause they look underdone in the middles, but really brown on the outsides! So these were a confusing cookie to bake, but they were SOOOO good, oh my gosh. Probably because of the browned butter. I'm not sure how long they would stay fresh though, since they're so thin. They might get too crunchy after 2 nights. 

Oh man, it's so sunny outside! I already went to Target this morning, and it was so not packed, which was awesome cause everything was in stock. I think I should go on a jog outside or something. And it's gonna be 80 on Tuesday!!! Hallelujah!