Scones with almond liqueur

This past holiday was the Year of the Liqueur. I had in previous years made limoncello, but this year, prompted by a superabundance of oranges as well as lemons leftover from a party, I branched out to try a DIY version of orange liqueur as well. That found me down the hill at the liquor store in search of more vodka. The helpful clerk at Ken & Norm's asked me what I wanted it for and when I said limoncello, he kindly suggested I try the Oddka, which was at a very nice price point that day. I thanked him, bought my vodka and as I was leaving, heard him ask the two men who had come in what they were looking for, and when told vodka to take on a hunting trip, oddly enough, he suggested Oddka was at a very nice price point that day. I sensed a trend.

At any rate, Oddka comes in what to me seem like very large bottles, which meant I had plenty leftover after making the limoncello and the orange liqueur (a nice first try, flavored with bitter orange peel from Northern Brewer). So I dipped into my "Glorious Liqueurs" cookbook to try chocolate liqueur and almond liqueur to help finish off the vodka excess.

Several bottles of these liqueurs found their way into my annual gift baskets, but not all of them were quite ready in time, which has left me with instead of too much vodka, perhaps a tad too many bottles of homemade liqueur cluttering the counter. Hence the quest to find recipes that use liqueur.

First up, these scones with almond liqueur. The original recipe was My Sister's Favorite Amaretto Scones, a user-submitted recipe on the Food Network. Since I made it pretty much as is, with just a few modifications, I'll send you there for the recipe. (I subbed in my almond liqueur for the Amaretto, didn't top it with powdered sugar and cut it into triangles instead of cutting out circles.)

The scones are subtly flavored with almond; next time I might sub in almonds for the pecans I used. After all, there's still more liqueur on hand.

We have found another killer use for the almond liqueur. We gilded a lily that really didn't need it but became even more sublime: hot chocolate made with Sonja's Famous Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream or Whatever, which was tucked into one of the gift baskets we received. Thank you, Sonja. And all we gave you was limoncello, etc.