• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup cold pressed oil
• 1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup (for brushing) agave nectar
• 1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

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Welcome to Techfast with Maple-glazed Pumpkin Scones! - Nov 01, 2011

Such opposition has caused AT&T to reconsider its merger application, as the wireless mogul, along with Deutsche Telekom and the Justice Department, asked a U.S. federal court for more time to assess all options on its proposed $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile USA. And now, Dish Network is trying to move in on the action by displaying interest in partnering with T-Mobile if its merger with AT&T fails to win FCC approval.

At this point, it’s hard to predict what exactly will come of this proposed partnership, and what it will truly take for all involved to be on the same page. It’s hard to imagine the carrier ecosystem will maintain the same structure over the next decade, but we have to wonder if the government is really willing to undo the progress it’s made over the past 25 years in the wireless marketplace, where the stakes are high and competition levels are unprecedented. 

Whatever the outcome, we know no merger is accidental and takes plenty of planning and deliberation amongst all involved parties. Fortunately, there are mishaps that do occur in other parts of life that fortunately don’t require the approval of others -- one of those being the kitchen, where I recently endured an accident of my own. No, no one broke an arm by slipping on a banana or suffered from third-degree burns on the stove: This rather fortunate calamity resulted in one marvelous, big-glass-of-milk-induced “scookie.”

Yes, you heard me right – a scookie, aka an aptly-named baked treat that is comprised of the basic ingredients of a cookie but exhibits the texture and taste of a scone. Turns out the author of the recipe I used lives at high altitude and uses excessive amounts of flour to counteract the dryness, which obviously doesn’t affect us Connecticut folk. Apparently, I neglected to read the finer details of her directions…

While this scookie is certainly ordinary just by its name, it comes packed – literally – with a surprise inside – an entire Oreo cookie! As you bite into this scrumptious treat, you get a blast of ooey-gooey chocolate chips and then the aftermath of the creamy familiarity of one of America’s favorite cookies. So yes, while cookies usually don’t fall into the breakfast category, its scone-like characteristics is what makes it the perfect, sweet delicacy to pair with your coffee and start out your day. Alas, I give you the turducken of cookies.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip ‘Scookie’

2 sticks softened butter (1 cup)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
3 1/2  -4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 oz bag of chocolate chips
1 package of Double Stuff Oreo Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add eggs and vanilla until well combined. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients along with the chocolate chips until just combined.  Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, place a scoop of dough on top of the Oreo Cookie. Now take another scoop of dough and place on the bottom of the Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed in dough.  Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until lightly browned.  Let cool 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  Serve with a tall glass of milk and enjoy!

*This recipe made 15 large scookies.

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It appears as though, in our heavily multi-tasking world, we require people and objects to be many things at once and do many things at once. Writers should also be photographers, engineers should be designers, our personal devices should be our best friends.

With the advent of Siri, the magical voice software on the iPhone 4S, we are wondering how heavy the reliance on this new technology will become for users. Will we begin to rely on our personal devices so much so that we will no longer be able to answer questions ourselves? Some argue that this process has already begun. Think about how many times a day you Google something to find out the answer. Just the other day a colleague was asked a question and suggested that we “Ask the mother.” She meant the Internet.

Google’s search function, as a vehicle for the Internet’s resources, is becoming our go-to playground for figuring out how to survive. Literally. You can Google “how to survive.”

More in hybrid news: Verizon wants to take a crack at streaming video a la Netflix? Good grief. How are we supposed to keep anything straight in this crazy world? We can get TV from Apple, social media from Google, TV from Verizon, and maybe a phone from Facebook?

We can certainly learn from those brands that have strayed from good quality content because of "over-multitasking." MTV appears to be such a brand. According to TMC's Tammy Wolf, MTV has tried to be too many things and simply do too much. For example, where the heck did all the music videos go? Doesn't MTV stand for music television? 

Wolf wrote, "Music videos may be taking a backstage spot on MTV, but they are now taking more of the spotlight on websites like VEVO, whose content is distributed on YouTube, and now on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service." 

Well, we’re starting small on this hybrid business in Techfast – with chocolate-dipped pretzel doughnuts. We promise we’re not that obsessed with doughnuts…even though we’ve written a little bit about them already, but these are special doughnuts because they are more like pretzels. Covered in chocolate. Don't worry, we won't be trying to combine baking and the TMC newsroom anytime soon... or will we?



Chocolate-Dipped Pretzel Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 4.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbs earth balance, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• Water for boiling
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• Kosher salt
• 0.5 lb semisweet chocolate

Directions

1. Combine the water, sugar, yeast, and kosher salt in a bowl and let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. Add the flour and earth balance, a little at a time,  to the yeast mixture. Stir until well combined.
3. Knead the dough, for 5 minutes, on a lightly floured surface.
4. Put 1 tsp of oil in a clean bowl and put the dough into the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place an hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
6. Bring the water and the baking soda to a boil on the stove.
7. Put the dough onto a lightly oiled work surface and divide into 15 equal pieces.
8. Roll out each piece of dough so that it is about 5″ long.
9. Put  each piece of dough into a hole in the donut pan and push the dough down with your finger until it fills out the entire shape.
10. Use a fork to carefully lift the dough out of the pan, and 1 by 1, place it into the boiling water for 30 seconds. Take the dough out of the boiling water and put it back into the donut pan.
11. Once all of the donuts have been boiled and placed into the donut pan, sprinkle them with salt and stick the pan in the oven for 12 minutes, or until light brown.
12. Let the donuts cool completely.
13. Melt the chocolate in a bowl.
14. Dip the top of the donuts into the chocolate and set it aside to harden.

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In a small mixing bowl, mix together the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Using a pastry cutter, fork, or your fingers, cut in the pieces of vegan butter apart and into the batter until the mixture resembles a crumbly topping. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the cake. 

Bake on a middle rack in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake emerges clean and the top is golden brown. Allow the cake to cool.

*My recipe for Gluten Free flour

Makes 3 cups!

1 cup white rice flour
1 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup arrowroot
1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Enjoy!

 

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Comments on this Entry:

(Gail Yudain on Nov 10, 2011 1:58 PM)

How much agave nectar? It didn't specify! :(

(Juliana Kenny on Nov 10, 2011 2:01 PM)

Sorry - about 1/2 a cup!

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delicious. 

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For example, orangutans chew leaves to make sponges to soak up water in tree cavities when other sources of water dry up or are difficult to locate. The next time someone tries to tell me that we’re more creative than animals, I’m going to ask him if he can claim he invented the sponge.

I also hesitate to say that we, as humans, are smarter than those “below” us. I just found out that mushrooms are geniuses and can save the planet.

So, assuming we’re not going to be saving the planet any time soon, we will probably continue our smoking habits, and the sponge has already been invented, we have no choice but to relish in our ability to cook things. While we’re at it, let’s eat the smartest thing possible: mushrooms!

Today’s issue of Techfast featured a Breakfast Strata from Ellie Krieger, renowned chef on The Food Network. A satisfying, stick-to-your-ribs strata has the effect of making one feel as though it’s Christmas morning all morning long. (Or whichever wintry holiday you celebrate post-solstice, pre-new year.) And this broccoli and mushroom strata is no different. Plus, you’ll be ingesting the brains of the planet, and will thus glean wisdom and understanding, perhaps even enough to get your kid to let go of his cell phone for a hot second.

TMCnet’s Carrie Schmelkin wrote about this rising problem of the cell phone inhibiting our children’s social, and possibly educational, growth as “HackCollege found the following key statistics: 25 percent of students whip out their cell phone every single class period; 94 percent of students text every day; 73 percent make calls every day; 60 percent state that they sometimes feel too ‘addicted’ to their phone; and 75 percent of students sleep next to their phones.”

Regardless of whether or not this growing dependency calls for a national “Yikes!” moment, we can all consciously take a step back, acknowledge that we should be aware of this bodily dependence on our technology, and just check out the beautiful fall foliage for a second. After all, self-reflection might be another divergence in our existences versus that of orangutans’.

Yes, I am fully aware of the irony surrounding the fact that I took this picture with my cell phone.

Check out more news from the Techfast eNewsletter, and get it delivered straight to your inbox for the hottest tech news and the most savory of breakfast ideas!

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Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, and cloves in a large bowl until combined.

Cut the stick of butter into about 10 chunks and add to the flour mixture. Combine the butter and flour mixture with a pastry cutter, or two knives. You can use your hands after the clumps become smaller. The mixture will be clumpy (that's a good thing). Stir in the chocolate chips. 

Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. 

Whisk all ingredients together until fully blended. When the scones have cooled, pour or spread on the glaze with a spoon and serve. Or just dunk those suckers in. Whatever floats your breakfast boat. 

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Stick to your New Years' Resolution with Sticky Blueberry Scones - Feb 07, 2012

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