. . . . . . . . Parable of the Scones

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I made scones today and had a fabulous time with my boys. Casen and Daven love to help me bake and they each had their chair next to the counter. First we got out the hard wheat and they took turns pouring it in the grinder and listening as the wheat kernels magically became light, fluffy, wonderful flour. They like it so much, they eat the flour plain. :)

Next I gave them the measuring cups and spoons and they carefully dumped each one into the mixer. They watched as the mixer whirred around and mixed the ingredients into a sticky dough. Then I showed them a neat "surprise" that when more flour was added, the dough didn't stick to the edges of the mixer anymore, it was like glue and it stuck all the ingredients together! They were amazed.

After the dough was ready, they each got a piece which they patted and pounded, kneaded and stretched. They worked for over 45 minutes on their little sections of dough, adding a little flour here, kneading a little more there. I asked them if they wanted to make the dough into mini pizzas, but neither wanted to, they simply ate the raw dough instead!

Finally, after spending all morning preparing, it was time to fry the scones. The chairs were pulled up yet again, but this time, Mom did all the work, so the boys didn't get too close to the hot oil. For lunch, Casen had 3 hot scones and a glass of milk. He was delighted, then asked if we could share some with his friends. So, we took a bunch of scones to his best buddy, Boston, who is also the son of his preschool teacher, Michelle. She was excited about the scones for dinner.

It was a fabulous day of scone making and scone eating! So, where is the lesson in all of this? Well, I started out the day making bread. I had five wonderful fresh loaves of bread all ready to go, when after 45 minutes, I realized they hadn't raised hardly at all! I had old or bad yeast and my 1.5 hours of work (to that point) had been wasted because my dough was sitting in bread pans, as heavy and thick as bricks. After talking with my sister, Tami, and my friend Cathy (an expert baker and cook!) we decided there was no salvaging the bread.

One "loaf" of bread will make more than a dozen scones, so now I have lots of scones to share. :) So it is time to deliver more scones, this time to my good friend and neighbor, Annette, who had a birthday yesterday. It is not homemade bread and jam, like I had planned, but hopefully she will still like the late treat.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I had really been in the mood for fresh homemade bread today, but boy, oh boy, did we have a blast making scones!