Scones

So.

When your wife has been awake half the night because you caught the kids' cold and couldn't stop hacking and then she had to get up three times with the baby, twice with the cat, and once with the dog and then she had to get out of bed AGAIN at 7 AM even though she asked if YOU would please get up with the baby because you didn't put your glasses on when you got up, thinking you were just going to lie down with the baby, and even when he said he had to make a poopoo in the potty you thought, "I can manage this without being able to see" and you could, except that when he got off the potty to wash his hands he made more poopoo on the stool he was standing on while he washed and you figured you needed to be able to see the poopoo in order to clean it up sufficiently so had to yell for your wife to please bring you your glasses and she was REALLY not happy that you hadn't just put them on your face to begin with like she told you to, making sure she has fresh warm scones and coffee to wake up to when she gives up on getting more sleep and just gets out of bed will not necessarily make everything perfectly better, but it will be a start.

These scones are super easy and you can make them a million ways.  And except for the buttermilk, you probably have everything in the house...and if you listened to me and made Lila's Chocolate Cake recently, you might even have that.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)
2/3 cup buttermilk (reduced fat works fine)
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Melt butter and let cool for five minutes.  While it's cooling, combine the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips.  Add the cooled melted butter to the buttermilk and mix.  After about 20 seconds, it will begin to curdle and clump and look like you've just screwed up and are going to have to throw the whole mess out and start again.  You didn't and you don't - mix a tiny bit more until it gets really thick and clumpy and then add it to the flour/chocolate chip mixture.  (You might have to get in there with your hands to get the last bit of floury stuff at the bottom to mix in, but your hands are clean, right?)  Drop by 1/4 cupfuls onto the baking sheets and bake 25 minutes at 350.  If you think about it, switch the pans halfway through (this makes about 10 scones and you can fit five on a sheet easily if you arrange them like dots on dice), but if you forget to switch them they'll still be fine.  Let cool just a bit on a wire rack and feed them to your wife with lots of coffee for best results.

Notes on this - there is a strange alchemy at work in this recipe.  You have to let the butter cool for five minutes.  You have to add the butter TO the buttermilk and not the other way around, or the big clumpy clotty curdley thing won't happen and they won't be quite as good.

Like I said earlier, there are a million ways to make these.  Skip the cinnamon and substitute dried blueberries for the chocolate chips.  And a pinch of clove and/or nutmeg, use dried cherries instead of dried blueberries, and sprinkle slivered almonds on the top.  Use cinnamon, clove, AND nutmeg and use peeled chopped apples instead of cherries (you might want to add just a tiny bit more sugar if you're doing this).  With the cinnamon apple ones you can go a little bit lower fat and substitute unsweetened applesauce for about 1/3 of the butter and they'll still be good, just a little more moist and cakey than they would otherwise have been.  Skip the spices and use dried currants for traditional English scones.

Any other good variations you find, let me know...but I'm betting the chocolate chip ones will work best to cheer up your sleep deprived spouse.