Chocolate Chip Scones

Last night my housemate and I baked chocolate chip scones from a Martha Stewart recipe that we adapted. We made the recipe, Fast Raspberry Scones, with blackberries on Saturday, and tried it last night with chocolate chips. They were delicious! Here's our adapted version:

Chocolate Chip Scones

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup buttermilk (we used milk with lemon juice to make buttermilk)

1 large egg yolk

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, mix together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter and mush together. (We used our hands because the recipe called for a food processor, which we don't have.) In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk and egg yolk. Slowly pour buttermilk mixture into larger bowl, mixing until dough just comes together.

Knead in chocolate chips. Transfer to flat surface. Gather and pat dough into a 1-inch thick square and cut or pull apart into 2-inch pieces. Place pieces about 2 inches apart on two parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets and sprinkle tops with 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake until golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let scones cool slightly on wire racks. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 20.

The Final Countdown

Today is May 3rd, which means I turn 22 in 10 days, and graduate in 20 days. Commence freakout. Or, commence senioritis. (Or more accurately, a little of both.)

On Wednesday we had spring convocation, the ceremony that marks the end of the academic year, when juniors officially become seniors (and get to ring the bell on top of Main building - see this post from last May) and seniors officially become alumni/e. But of course, that's all symbolic because we haven't even finished classes yet, let alone final papers and exams. We did, nevertheless, get to dress up in our graduation robes and march into the Vassar Chapel, and listen to some people make speeches.

The absolute best part of convocation was the speaker from the Alumni Association of Vassar College, a graduate from the class of 1995 who founded Peanut Butter & Co., a peanut butter company with exotic flavors such as White Chocolate Wonderful and Dark Chocolate Dreams, that even has a sandwich shop in Greenwich Village. The speaker, Lee Zalben, was funny and encouraging, and here's the best part: we all got free peanut butter! They handed out jars of Smooth Operator, Crunch Time, and White Chocolate Wonderful, and there was enough that each senior could take two. So now our house has eight jars of peanut butter, in addition to the jar of Skippy that was already open in the fridge. (Yummy.)

Nothing like a little peanut butter to soften the shock of becoming an alum...

Classes end tomorrow, and I'll be done with everything by May 12th. It's a crazy two weeks ahead (jazz dance performance tonight, tap performance Wednesday night, then final papers galore) but the weather is beautiful and it'll be senior week before I know it, so I'll try to enjoy every moment. All too soon I'll be an alum for real...ahh!!!

Choir Concert Webcast

This is late notice - I meant to post this a few days ago and then forgot - but if you're sitting in front of your computer around 3pm today you should watch the webcast of my choir concert at http://music.vassar.edu/concerts/webcast/index.html. We're performing Handel's Israel and Egypt, a baroque piece about the Passover story. It's really cool, and we're singing with an orchestra too. Catch a bit of it if you can!

Blossoms, Class Ring, and Dante

It's spring at Vassar too! I took these photos last week when the trees were covered in blossoms - unfortunately they've already fallen and green leaves are sprouting where the blossoms used to be.

I also got my Vassar class ring in the mail today!

This is my high school class ring:

...But I don't wear it that often. Sometimes I wear it if I'm wearing something red and it matches (I chose a red stone because red and black were PPAS's school colors) but I love that the Vassar ring is so simple, elegant, and understated. I'm also glad it arrived more than a month before graduation so I can enjoy wearing it facing towards me; once you graduate you turn it to face outward.

Isn't it pretty?

In other news, I finished memorizing the entire Canto III of Dante's Inferno this afternoon! The professor of my Italian seminar on the Inferno gave us the option of memorizing and performing a canto (the equivalent of a chapter in poem form) in Italian in lieu of writing a final paper, which sounds easy, but is actually quite a challenge. The canto I chose is 136 lines long. I still have to perfect it and cement it into my mind, but I have about a month in which to do that. I'm so happy I finally got through it all; when I was halfway through, the end seemed so far away! But I guess that can be said about a lot of things. People tell me that now I'll remember this canto for the rest of my life. I don't know if that's true, but if you want me to recite it the next time you see me, I'd be more than happy to oblige! Or you can request just a line or two if listening to 136 lines of medieval Italian seems a little overwhelming.

And another side note - did anyone watch Glee last night? My housemate and I both did presentations in our art history seminar today, so we didn't watch it last night, but we're watching it tonight and are very excited...