New Year's Eve Scones

This is a very long-overdue post - sorry for the procrastination, Aileen! Aileen, Bianca, and I headed up to Tomales Bay and Napa on New Year's Eve. It was an environmentally-conscious trip. Aileen drove her Civic hybrid, and we stayed at the Gaia Hotel in Napa, which was offering a special rate of $59 per night for two queen beds (despite what the site says, however, it is NOT a very romantic hotel). We wine-tasted about eight organic wines (thanks to a decreasingly sober and increasingly exuberant bartender) at Ubuntu, a "vegetable restaurant," bar, and yoga studio. Sounds weird, doesn't it? But this place seems to have gotten nothing but amazing press since we went, including making Frank Bruni's list of Top 10 US restaurants. In fact, it was mentioned first on this list. Anyway, we had a wonderful time ringing in 2008 here and at Uva Trattoria Italiana.

Because Bianca and Aileen were to come over to my place super-early on the morning of New Year's Eve, and in the spirit of the trip, I made them some organic whole-wheat scones. They were great in the morning with coconut oil slathered on and lingonberry jam. (Who knew a tropical oil and a Scandinavian berry would get along so well?) But where these scones really hit the mark was at Drake's Bay Family Farms, after a hike at Point Reyes National Seashore. Freshly shucked and with amazing homemade horseradish sauce, Aileen and I ended up eating a dozen oysters each, leaving a very briny taste in the mouth. So the scones balanced it out perfectly.

Aileen's been asking for the recipe, but I stuck it together from various sources and rather untraditional ingredients, so I hope this works. I used the Raspberry Mega Scones recipe from 101 Cookbooks as a base for the dough ingredients and Zuni Cafe Cookbook (I am beginning to think this is the only cookbook I'll ever need) for the technique. Oh, and Tartine for inspiration. ;) Both Zuni Cafe and Tartine have famous scones.

Here's the recipe:
4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1+1/4 sticks unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
2 oz. fresh lard
1/2 cup granulated sugar (the original recipes says more, if you like that)
1 1/4 cups coconut milk, and more as needed for dough (at least I think I used coconut milk. It might have been rice milk. If in doubt, Zuni's recipe calls for whole milk)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375. Cut the butter and lard into the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt using knives and/or your fingers but be careful not to melt the butter or mix it in too much. Add milk and vanilla extract and form a dough, then divide into two balls and roll them both out into logs. If you want to, put some turbinado sugar or some other big-grain sugar on top. Cut logs into triangles and bake on parchment paper until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes.