And for breakfast? I'm craving oat flake scone.

Well, summer mornings cannot be escaped, so I'm returning to them once again. With the intention of throwing all bread out of the kitchen cupboard to eat scones every day. With some quality butter and slices of tomato or cucumber or cheese or lettuce... every day. I've fallen in love with this recipe, that uses my A-list ingredients curd cheese, oat flakes and barley flour. Fortunately there's a morning every day.

This recipe does allow variations. If you haven't got curd cheese, you might as well use thick sour cream or sour milk. Feel free to add herbs or spices - for example caraway seems like a good option.

Oat flake scone

200 g curd cheese
1 1/2 tbsp oil
1 1/2 dl oat flakes
1/2 dl barley flour
1/3 tsp salt
1 garlic clove, smashed
1/4 tsp soda

1. Mix together all the ingredients.
2. Spread the dough onto a baking tray that is greased or covered with parchment paper (better option) and form it so that it's about 1 1/2 cm thick.
3. Bake at 220C for about 30 minutes.
4. Serve warm.



The outside of the scone is crispy and golden brown, the inside is soft - the favour of curd cheese. One garlic clove gives quite much taste, but if you want it really garlicky, you may add another. The scone has the flavour of roasted oat flakes, barley flour gives an additional earthly flavour, again. Just get some good butter and it's actually all you need to enjoy the scone, but a ripe tomato or two are a healthy and welcomed bonus!

So is riding roller-blades instead of a bus, as I discovered yesternight.

A pinch of Estonia plus a pinch of onions

When I decided to bake something for the Waiter there's something in my...bread event hosted by Spittoon Extra, I immediately thought about onions. I've eaten some great onion bread (rye bread, of course - it's Estonia after all) while in South-Estonia and unfortunately they don't sell it here in the north (like the country was so big!)

But my rye bread adventures still lie ahead of me. Nevertheless I wanted to stay traditional and decided for barley flour and curd cheese. With a personal favourite of course - onions. Onions-onions-onions. What luck that someone had bought them, cause I remember eating them all:)


Onioned barley and curd cheese soda bread
(adapted from Estonian National Cuisine)

125 g curd cheese
2 1/2 dl milk
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar/honey
2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 dl barley flour
1 1/2 dl wheat flour
1/2 tsp soda
200 g chopped onion

1. Melt butter in a saucepan or a skillet and cook onions at low heat until transparent. Then puree until smooth.
2. Grease a loaf pan with butter and add some flour or semolina, shaking to cover the bottom and sides evenly.
3. Beat the egg and add curd cheese, milk, salt, sugar.
4. Mix flour with soda and add.
5. Pour the batter into the mold and bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes.



My bread turned out nicely moist. It was pure pleasure eating it warm from the oven with only some butter on it. In fact it's almost the only thing I've eaten the whole day. The taste of onion is rather on the background, but it's there. Barley flour gives the bread a somehow rougher taste, it's also slightly sweet.

The orginal recipe had no onions, so I decided to add an additional 1/2 dl of wheat flour too (that might just be the mind of a beginner, but hey - it worked!). For more oniony taste I'd add more of them. Not pureed, but as tiny bits, so the taste would be in tthe foreground too. This time I decided not to add herbs to get a pure taste, but thyme or parsley would fit well. Pumpkin seeds are another idea - inside or on the top.
Anyway - a thank you to my ancestors.