We're Havin' a Heat Wave

What is it with me and baking on the hottest days of the year? We're closing in on the end of a stretch of unusually warm weather, but I needed to bake squares for a funeral lunch so on went the oven.

I don't often bake squares, leaning more to cakes, pies or cookies, so I tend to always make the same stuff - the perfect excuse for a Pinterest search. These Almond Bars caught my attention, in part because the recipe is so large, but also that they are just a little different. I whipped up half a batch this morning and now I'm regretting not making the full batch so that we'd have some in the house.

Trimming the edges of the square a bit allowed for a wee taste test before they were glazed. Lovely. I only made up half a batch of glaze and it was still tons and is plenty to help keep the sliced almonds in place.

While the oven was on I decided to see about a batch of Rhubarb Scones to have at lunch with our soup. It is always such a treat to go out and pick a few fresh stalks and use them right away. 

This isn't the recipe that I had planned to make. While searching for the original recipe I came across this one and loved the idea of using heavy cream, avoiding having to haul out my food processor. So easy.

It makes a 10" round, which is larger than I had thought, but they turned out beautifully. We used to frequent a B&B where the host made two different scones each morning (in addition to handmade croissants!) and his were smaller, so another time I might experiment with dividing the dough into two rounds.

I am always leery of overworking biscuit dough to avoid making them tough. Looking at the edges, I probably could have given the dough one or two more kneads, but they were good. 

And I sprinkled them with a little sugar before baking instead of brushing them with butter when they came out of the oven.

I think that I could have separated the sections before baking them too, but I just cut them apart as soon as they came out of the oven.

I'm really happy with how light and fluffy they are and they are very tasty with a piece of cheddar cheese.

There was glaze left from the Almond Bars so I used it on half of the scones. Before I could get a good 'half & half' photo, the Official Cookie Tester thought that a taste test was in order (I've got to watch him like a hawk!). Lots of mmmmmm coming from that end of the kitchen 😊.

And finally, several of you have asked for the Lemon Rhubarb Buttermilk Bundt Cake recipe that I made a while back; you can find the link to it in this post. This is another one where I find that half a batch of the glaze is more than enough, especially since the cake is so moist.

Still lots more recipes to test drive while rhubarb is in season, including a Ginger Rhubarb Jam. Fun, fun, fun!....M