Cut Rounds

British Dessert

CUT ROUNDS

INGREDIENTS

7 teaspoons baking powder
3¼ cups flour (4 tablespoons more later)
⅓ cup milk powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup softened butter
1⅓ cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons flour (2 tablespoons more later)
2 tablespoons flour

SPECIAL UTENSIL

baking sheet

Makes 12. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add baking powder, 3¼ cups flour, milk powder, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix gently with fork until well blended. Rub butter into flour until you get tiny breadcrumbs.

Use fist to make a well in the middle of the tiny breadcrumbs. Knead gently with hands only until you just get a dough ball. (Don’t use electric beater.) If the dough is dry, add just enough extra buttermilk to make dough soft. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Roll dough out into a log that is 3″ wide. Cut round log into 12 pieces. (This is why this dessert is called cut rounds.) Press pieces into a round shape ¾” thick.

Dust baking sheet with 2 tablespoons flour. Place cut rounds on baking sheet. (Don’t let them touch.) Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until rounds have risen and turned golden brown. Split rounds in half. (This is why they are sometimes called splits.) Rounds go well with cream and jam on them. Use clotted cream if you can get it.

TIDBITS

1) Cut rounds are round. If the jam and the cream that often go inside them were replaced with surveillance devices you could conduct a 360˚ observation. In general, enemy countries are always on the alert for our eavesdropping..

2) But no one would ever suspect a Cut Round. It’s so yummy. So, I propose that the CIA put cameras and listening devices in Cut Rounds and leave them wherever we need to glean foreign intelligence. You could ask the CIA if they already employ Cut Rounds, but they tend not to tell the public things as it is, after all, a top-secret organization.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.