“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16
I love a good recipe. Something tried and true that will not disappoint if I happen to be having 16 people over for a meal or 8 friends for a tea. Dependable, doable, detailed instructions leading from a group of ingredients to a delicious dinner or dessert. In cooking and baking, uniformity and assured outcomes are welcome.
Last week my daughter called and said they were making the rolls from my blog, but things were not working out. The dough would not come together. As we talked I suggested they add more flour, tweaking the recipe. Ultimately the rolls turned out okay, but not an A+.
I try to provide detailed, doable, dependable recipes on this blog, but what I can’t provide are the little tweaks and emergency measures that I have learned over a lifetime of baking and cooking. What to me are easy adjustments, second nature responses from years of practice, are unknown stepping stones in a dark cave to those new to the recipes.
Recipes are finicky things. Even good ones will turn out differently if the humidity is high or low. I use a different amount of flour for chocolate chip cookies when I bake them at the coast in Charleston, SC, or in the mountains near Denver, CO, or in the piedmont of Greenwood, SC. The recipe is the same, just needs to be adjusted for altitude and humidity to achieve the desired outcome.
Our culture has adjusted to so much uniformity that we expect perfection (as determined by us) in all our created things, be they cookies or quilts or cars or children. We read how to books, watch YouTube videos and practice, assured that we can get it perfectly right every time.
But what does it mean to get it right? Even a good recipe cannot guarantee never burning another cookie. The proper quilt pattern will not assure straight seams, buying a high end car won’t eradicate a crack in a windshield, parenting books may not perfect parenting. Even Oreos come with a broken cookie or two.
Psalm 139 reminds us that God, the creator of all, has perfectly designed each one of us. He knows us intimately, down to every detail, and He loves us. We are not hidden from His sight, He knows our days and is not surprised by the details of our lives. Our broken, burned cookies don’t make Him hide his face in shame or pronounce us unfit, imperfect, unacceptable.
In fact, God creates each of us uniquely, intricately, not one exactly like another. Science may call identical twins identical for genetic reasons, but this mom of identical twins knows they are not at all identical in terms of who they are. Unique, intricate, special, each person is perfectly formed by God’s definition of perfectly formed, fearfully and wonderfully made.
I’m sharing a recipe with you today that illustrates the subjective definition of perfection and the beauty of being uniquely tweaked. I received a lovely scone cookbook as a gift many years ago. I love the recipes from this book; but I also tweak the recipes from this book. My family prefers moist to dry so I have altered many of the scone recipes to resemble a “scuffin”, part scone part muffin. This tweaking produces a baked good my family loves; the original recipes produce baked goods others love. We all have individual tastes and preferences.
Just because I bake something one person does not prefer does not make it bad or wrong or imperfect. If you are tracking with me, I hope you hear me saying that you are exactly who God designed you to be, with all your unique quirks. Stop trying to conform to a worldly idea of perfection and uniformity.
I am not discussing sin here. Do not take this as license to run wild; take it as approval to love the you that God created you to be. We all need a little tweaking! but the basic recipe God used is perfect. Let God make you aware if you need a little more or less flour, stop obsessing over becoming someone else’s perfect.
Gingerbread Scones is no exception to my tweaking rule. I have learned how to make these quickly and easily with great results almost every time. Results my family loves but a good Brit might not recognize! I will give you the recipe both ways, first the original and then my adaptation. Both are remarkably good.
Gingerbread Scones
- 2 cups Gold Medal flour
- 1/3 cups dark brown sugar, packed
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, chilled
- 1 large egg
- 3 Tbsp molasses
- 3 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)
Preheat oven to 375*. Lightly butter a 10″ diameter circle in the center of a baking sheet.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and all spices. Whisk together. Cut the butter into small cubes, then distribute over the dry ingredients. Use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until mixture looks like small crumbs.
In a small bowl stir together egg, molasses, milk and vanilla. Add wet mixture to the dry and combine. The dough will be sticky. Stir in raisins if desired.
With lightly floured hands, pat the dough into a circle in the center of the prepared pan. With a serrated knife cut the dough into 8 wedges. Bake at 375* for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes, recutting wedges if necessary.
Serve with butter, clotted cream or maple butter.
Debbie’s Gingerbread Scone/Muffins
- 2 cups Gold Medal Flour
- 1/3 cup brown sugar, light or dark
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/3 cup chilled butter, cut into Tbsps
- 1 large egg
- 3 Tbsp molasses
- 1/2 – 3/4 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 375*. Grease a scone pan or flat baking sheet.
In a large bowl whisk together all dry ingredients. Cut butter into this mixture using a pastry cutter or knife until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add wet ingredients to this mixture and stir. Dough should be too sticky to work with your hands, add milk if dough seems too dry.
Use a spoon and spatula to fill 8 scone wedge sections or drop onto a flat cooking sheet. as you would for drop biscuits, making 16. Bake 20-25 minutes if using scone pan. Bake less if making 16 biscuit style scones. Time for 17 minutes, then use a toothpick or cake tester to check scones.
Serve with butter, clotted cream or maple butter.