Nana was the cooking queen in our family. Whenever we went to Nana’s our mouths would water at the thought of the foods she would make. She made ginger-nut biscuits that had no nuts but were full of gingery goodness, moist chocolate cake with raspberry jam in the middle and dollops of fresh, whipped, cream sprinkled with chocolate flakes on top. Milk tart, with its sugary crust dough; the sweet milky custard filling was covered with cinnamon and served cold with a good cup of tea. Cheese scones, however, oozing globs of cheese with thick slabs of butter on top, were a family favourite. A weekly gathering without these scones would have been unusual.
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces self-raising flour
Nana was always in the kitchen. Her kitchen was small and nothing special. It was bright and inviting; it felt yellow. The kitchen door was the one the cousins ran in and out of because the main front door was always locked. I was a middle child. I refused to associate myself with the younger ones, so I was always tailing along with my two older cousins and my older brother. The kitchen was the easiest place to get to the bathroom, the dining room, the bedrooms, and Nana’s bedroom. Nana was always busy in there working with the maid, Aggie. I was too obsessed with what my cousins were doing to pay attention to Nana. I remember seeing Nana—out of the corner of my eye—always sieve the flour. For a moment I would stop my hiding and seeking and watch her. Tap, tap; tap, the sieve would go on her strong hand. The flour would fall ever so delicately into the bowl, as if suspended in time, it was what I imagined snow to look like. Crack, and egg would fall into the middle of the flour and I would realise my impending doom if I did not hide, so on my way I would go.
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
Nana always got the measurements right. She never made flat cakes, or ones that rose terribly high and then caved in the middle, like I did. At the age of seven my family moved away from Nana and Poppa’s house. This was the age I began to cook on my own. I tried to do everything she did, but mine still never came out like hers. I was an extremely stubborn child. I insisted that recipes needed not to be followed. I knew that all recipes had flour, sugar, baking powder, oil and anything extra one wanted to make it something special. My “extra special” was green food colouring, or no sugar, or sometimes omitting baking powder. Mom began to ban me from cooking unless I agreed to follow a recipe, because everything I made was inedible. Nana knew her recipes by heart; she always had the recipe nearby but she hardly used it. Maybe that was where I got the idea that people didn’t need recipes. But, I have also carried this stubborn streak with me. Or maybe I finally inherited Nana’s cooking skills. Now, I follow a recipe slightly but I add things, as my heart desires. I smell, taste, and sometimes touch, to see what ingredients are needed; Nana did this too. I did learn, in my experimental six to eight years, that there are some things that cannot be “felt” into a recipe. Baking powder was one of these. Many times I omitted baking powder, as I wasn’t convinced it was truly necessary. My cakes would resemble a large, flat, spongy cookie if I left it out all together. If I added too much, which I did to a chocolate cake recipe, it would rise tremendously in the oven and then immediately sink in the middle when removed from the oven. Although Nana didn’t teach me this lesson directly I still think I learnt it from her. Some things can be “felt”; others cannot.
Nana had fresh, creamy butter to spread on the scones when they were finished. This may have been why I hardly ever made scones; I couldn’t eat them without butter. In our house we could only afford margarine. They sometimes say that genes skip generations, when it comes to food this is very true in our family. Mom never inherited Nana’s cooking abilities or her taste buds. Mom has an iron stomach and can eat anything after it’s expiration date. Mom also had to make do on a very limited budget and that is why we only ever had margarine. When I was a teen I would sometimes be able to coerce mom into buying butter, then I would make scones. We would all devour them as if we hadn’t eaten anything good in months, but without butter nothing is worth eating.
- 11 ounces strong grated cheese
Strong cheese was the key. Nana’s scones were always so cheesy; mine never seemed to be as cheesy. Was it the type of cheese? Once again we never bought the good quality stuff. Or was it simply that we never had a full 11 ounces of cheese to use? Although I only made these scones rarely I was always so frustrated that I didn’t have Nana’s magic touch. At fifteen I had given up the idea of green cakes, or baking powder-less recipes, so I was convinced my food should have tasted as good as Nanas. It might have been that I was fifteen and she was fifty, but I never would consider that fact. I never asked for advice, or for anyone to help me. My two younger sisters hating cooking with me; I always gave them dish duty. I would never really let anyone interfere with my art; this was how Nana was too. It wasn’t that she didn’t want company but that she was creating in the kitchen. It’s hard to interrupt someone, or try to “help” when they are crafting something dear to their heart.
- 6 fluid ounces milk
I think Nana always used measuring cups to put the liquids in. She may have had a small measuring jug too, but I think its measurements were worn off the side so it was easier to use measuring cups. I also used measuring cups. However, the one-cup had to be used with delicacy. In my “younger” less experienced days I had tried to melt a cup of butter on the stovetop in the plastic measuring cups. Luckily I caught the disaster before the cup was completely deformed. The bottom of it was full of little holes and the handle had a nice, perfectly rounded hole melted right out of it. I used that cup for years and years; I learnt the fine art of pouring liquids fast into the cup over my bowl and then decanting it. Probably not the most accurate measurement, but it seemed to work.
- 1 dash pepper
A dash means different things. To some it’s a pinch, to others, it’s half a teaspoon, and to some it’s a simple shake of the shaker. Nana had a sixth sense about the dash; she knew the perfect amount. There was never too much or too little. The dash was where freedom was allowed, where judgment calls had to be made and where sensitivity to little grandchildren played a part.
- 2 teaspoons mustard powder
Colmans’ Mustard is what we used. I am not sure if that is what Nana used. In fact, I am not sure most of the time what Nana used, or how she did things. She just made perfect meals, and baking; we gobbled it up. I never baked with Nana, not once when I was little. I gleaned things from her as she talked about the recipes while we ate them. I learnt to bake through eating. When our family would drive the four hours to go visit Nana, she would always pull out the stops with her best recipes. Without realising it, I would eat and analyse. I would then go home and try to recreate her creations. I never cooked with Nana back then, mostly because we grew up far away from her, but also because she liked to cook alone as I did.
I have baked with Nana once. We made cheese scones. It was Christmas 2009. I hadn’t seen Nana in 7 years. Nana and Poppa had moved to New Zealand and my family had moved to the States. My two sisters were there, my parents my husband and Poppa of course. We were at my parents’ house in the mountains in Colorado. My family had been bragging to Nans and Pops for years of how good a cook I was. I was terrified to finally cook around my idol. The recipe had to be adapted for high altitude—Nana needed help—so I shyly offered to lend a hand.
Directions:
Prep Time: 35 mins
Prep time took much longer than the 35 minutes that the recipe said it would take. We were in no rush and we also had constant disruptions. Nana slowly grated cheese. It wasn’t the “good-cheese” and so it was very crumbly. Dad kept coming in to “taste-test” the cheese, so Nana had to keep grating more, as I stood by trying to defend the cheese with a random swat here and there. Dad always has to “taste-test” things to make sure they aren’t poisonous for everyone else. I never bought that reasoning when I was little and I didn’t that Christmas either, but I indulged him as we had enough cheese. I wasn’t so generous when cheese was once-upon-a-time scarce. I had to convert the ounces to cups—I am mathematically challenged and so that took a while. Mom and Dad have a conversion chart taped to the pantry door because this a problem our family often runs into. I couldn’t figure it out on the chart, I asked Poppa to double check, as well as Dad. They stood there quizzically studying the chart and got nowhere. So, to the computer I went; Google had a fast answer: 11 ounces was 1.375 cups, approximately one and a third cups. We also needed Google for high-altitude methods; for 8000 feet we needed to add three to four tablespoons of water for each cup of liquid, and we needed to decrease the baking powder by a quarter of a teaspoon. Poppa came in and needed a whole scientific reason behind this method. He wanted to know exactly why more water needed to be added, he was convinced that one would need less water for high altitudes. I tried to come up with one, but I am also far from a scientist. I Googled once again and gave him the reasoning. According to thecookinginn.com,
First at higher elevations, water boils at a lower temperature, thus requiring you to cook longer once you hit boiling (and the time it takes you to prepare your recipe). For example, the water's not as hot in Denver as it is in Boston, even boiling. This is the reason, when cooking in the mountains, your coffee and hot chocolate can be merely tepid, even though the water was boiling. Second baked goods tend to rise faster, requiring a change in the proportion of ingredients used in leavened foods (such as breads and cakes). Sometimes, you may need to adjust the baking temperature in your oven as well!
This was not sufficient enough for Poppa, and I didn’t have the time to keep Googling so we left it at that and he went on to question my other siblings about altitude and its affects on cooking. We also had to figure out the American equivalent to self-raising flour, for each cup of flour we needed to add half a teaspoon of baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt. Needless to say, after figuring all this out the preparation time took closer to and hour and a half rather than 35 minutes.
Total Time: 50 mins
All the mathematics threw both Nana and I off. We are both free-spirits in the kitchen and having to work everything out proved to be rather exhausting. We took a break. Nana couldn’t stand for very long and so we sat in the lounge with a cup of tea and let the ingredients rest for a while. I enjoyed this moment thoroughly. I got to just be with Nana; our main goal was cooking, but I got to glean from her, listen to her and share my life with her. It was something my childhood lacked, but we made up for lost time quickly, even in just this simple recipe.
- Sieve the flour and dry ingredients.
When Nana’s energy was renewed we hit the kitchen again. I watched her for the first time—since that one glance—sieve the flour. I have always sieved my flour. Many times to make sure there weren’t little maggots in it. I watched Nana tap the sieve ever so gently on her hand; the dusting flittered down into the bowl. I knew the recipe would turn out perfect because Nana had sieved the flour.
- Mix in the butter or margarine.
Nana gave me a special gift that Christmas. She went to Wal-Mart and picked out the best whisk she could—I already owned a whisk, but I didn’t tell her that—she told me that anything could be done with a whisk. Nana never used a hand beater and she had never heard of a Kitchen-Aid. She would just hold the bowl tightly in one hand and go to town with the other one. She became wonder woman with that whisk, beating the life out of the hard sticks of butter, eggs, and cookie dough. She could whip anything into submission with a whisk.
- Add grated cheese, mix well then add the milk in slowly.
Nana added the cheese, what was left of it after my Dad had snuck in and out of the kitchen, and I added the milk. She of course, whisked it altogether.
- Mix into a dough, pat with hand then cut into shapes. (I like to add cheese to the top of the scone too).
Nana always used her hands—for everything. I have the same disease. So we showered the counter with flour and pounded the dough with our fists. (The other day I finally found the perfect scone cutters, just like Nana had when I was a child). Nana had some cutters years ago; they were almost a flower shaped with lots of little curvy edges. They were the perfect size, about three inches wide and one inch tall. When we baked the scones at Christmas we didn’t have the cutters. So we moulded each doughy mess into the best circular shape we could. This took a while as we had made a double batch to satisfy the masses.
- Bake in the oven at 230 degrees C until risen with lightly golden tops.
230 degrees was 440 F. This seemed a strange temperature so we rounded up to 450. Just because the scones were in the oven, it didn’t mean the hard work was over. Nana wasn’t used to Mom’s oven so she checked them every two to three minutes. She hardly ever opened the oven, because she said that let all the heat out. She had the oven light on and would get up every now and then to check. This is a gift I did not inherit from Nana. Once they are in the oven, I often forget about them; a timer is my best friend. However, even though there was no time limit on the scones we both knew when they were done. It was as if an imaginary device went off in both our heads and we simply knew. Golden brown and risen perfectly, we took our creation out of the oven. Nana hardly let them cool before taking each one off of the cookie sheet with her bare hands and placing it on the cooling rack. I helped her, but they were hot.
We let them cool just a little before we decorated pretty plates with them. We both had a plate with piping hot scones on them and we served them with globs of butter and a little extra cheese on top. We watched the family devour Nana’s famous cheese scones with joy, something deeply satisfied both of us, good food had been served and enjoyed.
I have always baked with Nana in my heart and my head. Everything I have cooked has had her stamp on it. Somehow, I learnt things from her without ever cooking with her. I will treasure the moment I did bake with Nana. Our two cooking worlds came together; we baked as if we had always baked together, and in a sense we had.
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