Sasha's Kitchen: Alice's Banana Butterscotch Scones

Alice's Tea Cup is my favorite place in NYC for tea & scones. I used to go there all the time when I loved near the one in the Upper East Side. They have different scones all the time, and a huge selection of fabulous teas, as well as great salads, sandwiches and desserts. Its one of my all-time favorite brunch places, if not for the crowds and long wait at brunch time on the weekends. Their roobois coconut vanilla, chocolate mint and entire range of teas are always a delight, and I've bought many of them for use at home. Plus, the place is absolutely adorable - all decked out in the cutest Alice In Wonderland stuff.  The place is like a little girl's dreamland. I really miss living close by to Alice's (although I miss little else about living in the Upper East Side), so I was thrilled when my husband brought home a copy of the new Alice's Tea Cup cookbook. All of my favorite recipes are in there, and I couldn't wait to get started.

For dinner tonight, I made a simple cucumber tea sandwich with lemon chive butter, one of my favorite sandwiches, and banana butterscotch scones. Tomorrow night, I plan on making the Lapsang Souchong tea infused chicken sandwiches. I will share the sandwich recipe in a future post, but for this post, I will share the great recipe for scones, which is one of the things that Alice's is famous for. There are so many amazing sounding scones recipes in the book, but I decided to start with this banana butterscotch recipe. My husband wanted me to make it with chocolate chips, which I am sure would also be good - but the butterscotch chips are just perfect, and much more subtle with the banana. The recipe made a total of 16, so we will be sharing some with friends. They are perfect when served traditionally with raspberry preserves and clotted cream.

Alice's Banana Butterscotch Scones
3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp Kosher salt
1 1/2 sticks of butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 bananas, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used the huge bottle of Vanilla that I bought in Mexico)
1/4 cup heavy  cream (for brushing)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (for sprinkling)

Preheat the oven to 425. In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Work the butter into the flour mixture with clean hands until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the banana slices and butterscotch chips and combine well. Make a well in the center of the bowl, and add the buttermilk and vanilla into the center of the well. Combine until the mixture is wet but do not knead.

Gather the dough together and pat and cut into discs about 1 1/2 inch thick. Cut apart the scones and lay them on a non-stick baking sheet. Before you bake, brush the top of each scone with heavy cream, and then sprinkle with sugar. Bake each sheet separately for about 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Sasha's Kitchen: Alice's Banana Butterscotch Scones

Sasha's Kitchen: Eat Me: Alice In Wonderland Themed Cupcakes Series

As most of my readers are probably aware by now, I love making cupcakes.  My passion for cupcakes is two-fold.  First, I love making cupcakes in different delicious flavors and experimenting with lovely frosted cupcakes from key lime to chocolate to vanilla to gingerbread.  In addition, I also love cupcake decorating and turning my cupcakes into miniature works of art.  I have done cupcakes that look like the great modern art masters of the 20th century in my modern art cupcake series, and of course sushi cupcakes.  Today, I introduce my series of Alice In Wonderland Cupcakes, inspired by Lewis Carroll's classic novel.  I made these cupcakes together with my often-sous chef Alicia, who was actually named after the main character, Alice (her mom did her thesis dissertation on the novel).  We had a fabulous time creating an original series of Alice in Wonderland cupcakes inspired by the novel - including the the Mad Hatter's hat, the White Rabbit's watch, the Doormouse, Tweedlededum, the Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar.

The cupcakes that we made tasted great too (if you were willing to destroy the beautiful designs to eat them, which is quite hard to do, actually).  They are gingerbread cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.  I promise to share the recipe for the plain cupcakes in a future post that focuses only on the cupcakes, but for today, I wanted to share the Alice In Wonderland inspired designs that we created last weekend.  Please leave a comment on this post and let me know which ones are your favorites!

The cupcakes are all made out of colored fondant that I purchased from NY Cake in a couple of different varieties.  The fondant was very easy to work with - kind of like sculpting out of Play Dough to create beautiful food art.   Without further ado, here are the photographs from my "Eat Me" Alice in Wonderland Series of cupcakes:

The Mad Hatter's Hat Cupcakes:

The eccentric Mad Hatter and his hat are probably one of the most famous characters from the Lewis Carroll novel at the tea party.

The Cheshire Cat and his famous mischievous grin are one of the most recognizable images from Alice in Wonderland.  We did the Cheshire Cat into a cupcake, as well as an offbeat goofy cupcake that simply personifies his grin.

The White Rabbit is one of my favorite characters from Alice in Wonderland.  He is always quite worried about being late, so for him, we created cupcakes that look like his pocket watch.  "I'm Late! I'm Late! For a very important date!"

The Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar is another distinctive character from the Lewis Carroll novel.  We weren't sure how to make him at first, and I used some artistic license in making him blue and yellow rather than simply blue.  In the end, I was quite happy how he turned out, with a small pipe in his hand.

Next up are Tweedlededum and Tweedlededee.  I only made one of these rolly polly guys, since they look the same.  I used some artistic license in simply creating a cupcake that personified their pants, suspenders and striped shirt, and their roundish (cupcake-like) shape.  They actually first appear in Lewis Carroll's sequel, Through The Looking Glass.

Eat Me and Drink Me are one of the two famous quotes from the Lewis Novel where Alice grows, shrinks and changes form based on the potions, elixirs and other things that she ingests.  We created two "Eat Me" cupcakes, and really who wouldn't want to eat them anyhow?

We did not do the Queen of Hearts or her famous croquets with flamingos on the mallets, but in spirit to the Queen, we did do a playing card cupcake.  "Off with their heads!"

The Doormouse is another character from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  I wasn't as happy with how he came out as the others - we just did a small mouse in a teacup.

Hope you enjoyed my cupcake tribute to Alice in Wonderland.  Leave a comment and let me know which cupcake is your favorite!

Sasha's Kitchen: Eat Me: Alice In Wonderland Themed Cupcakes Series