I am the first to admit that some of my baking ideas are massive fails.  Last week I made a Father’s Day cake that tasted delicious but looked like a hot mess, at Christmas I made tiny shortbread that completely fell apart, and there has been more than one set of brownies that had to be scraped out of the pan.  Things go a heck of a lot better when I follow someone else’s recipe.

That’s why these buns are a tiny miracle.

I have an annoying habit of buying more bananas than I can eat and letting the extras go bad.  I had several overripe bananas in my kitchen and decided I need to use them in something other than banana bread.  The idea of peanut butter and banana cinnamon buns popped into my head – surely someone on the Internet could tell me how to make them, no?  The first three results on Google didn’t match what I was thinking of, and given my incredibly limited attention span and lack of desire to look any further, I decided to just invent my own recipe.

And they worked!  Like, sooooo well!  I am surprised and delighted.  Clearly.

Of course, I didn’t invent the bread part of the recipe – that’s straight out of The Canadian Living Cookbook.  How many times have I cited that book now?  Yeah.  That’s how good it is.  I don’t care that it’s older than Torie… it’s a classic.

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We try to post on Sundays and Wednesdays for consistency sake. I am in charge of the posting schedule and I am a day late, but I have a good excuse. I spent the weekend in Washington State and I was tired last night. That is a good enough reason in my books.

The US is a lot like Canada, except different in all these little subtle ways. The fast food sizes are way bigger. The gas is cheaper. The highways are worse. But they have outlet malls with actual bargains and you can’t go to P. F. Chang’s in Canada.

We went to Jamba Juice and I accidentally gave the guy a Canadian penny..along with 9.27 in American dollars…wasn’t like I was trying to pull a fast one.  He handed it back to me and said “This isn’t a penny. This is some sort of Canadian penny,” in the most shocked and confused voice he could have come up with.  Is it weird that I surprised by this? We have always just accepted American pennies as little foreigners that infiltrate our change, but we don’t mind. The American penny is a tiny piece of copper (or copper plated metal) that is worth one cent..which, funnily, is also the description of the Canadian penny. He made me trade him the Canadian penny for an American one. I wonder what he would have done if I handed him a loonie?

What does this have to do with White Chocolate Raspberry Scones? Well White Chocolate Raspberry Scones are not legal tender in Canada or the US.

Little scones sweetened with white chocolate chips and a surprise filling of tart raspberries. I have been buying a lot of raspberries lately. They were on sale.

As with any quick bread recipe: Do Not Over Mix!

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Mmmmm lemon meringue.  Sweet and sour and lemony and marshmallowy all at the same time.  And so easy!  I can whip up a lemon meringue pie in an hour, including baking time (but not including making the pastry from scratch, because that would be crazy).  These little guys are a bit more work because they’re done individually, but they’re so darn cute I think they’re worth the extra effort.

This is the lemon meringue pie for people who don’t like lemon meringue pie (e.g., our Marm).  So if someone in your life claims they don’t like lemon meringue pie, tell them it’s only because they haven’t had this lemon meringue pie.  Then make it for them and if they still don’t like it then accept that they’re a lost lemon meringue cause and focus your baking efforts on people who appreciate you, for goodness sake!

Speaking of our-Marm-who-doesn’t-like-lemon-meringue-pie-but-likes-this-one, this recipe is adapted from her very old school Canadian Living Cookbook.  This is the book that I learned to bake from, and even though it was published in 1987 Torie and I have both managed to get our hands on copies.  It’s sooooo 80s and so awesome.  So maybe the retroness makes these hipster lemon meringue tarts?  Whatever, they’re great, go make them!

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