Start with a scale - much easier than measuring out the ingredients.

Put the food processor bowl on the scale. 

• Add in 560 grams of flower
• 120 grams of granualated sugar and about
• 25 grams of baking powder and about
• 5 grams of salt.

Place the bowl back on the food processor and blend the dry ingredients together for about 30 to 40 seconds. cube 152 grams of cold butter and add it one cube at a time and pulse the food processor for about 5 seconds and resting 10 seconds (this is to cut the butter into the flour mixture but keep the blades from melting the butter - melting the butter bad). 

After adding the last of the butter, keep pulsing the food processor for 1 second on and 5 off until you don't hear any of the large chunks of butter hitting the blade. 

in a large measuring cup,

• pour in 240 ml of heavy whipping cream,
• 2 large eggs,
• rum and vanilla extract (1tsp each, but I usually just pour until it looks right) (I will use almond extract instead of vanilla - other extracts work too - in fact now I want to try a mint extract with chocolate chips, but I digress). 

Beat all the liquids together with a whisk. Pour the dry ingredients from the food processor bowl into a glass mixing bowl. It is at this point where you can add the candied ginger, dried apricots, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, nuts, etc.  I usually try and limit the mixing to two ingredients, one soft and one crunchy.  200 grams total for both ingredients (or 100 grams of dried apricots and 100 grams of candied ginger, etc).  Also, chop the ingredients up to where you want them.  make a well and add the liquid ingredients. fold in the cream/rum/vanilla mix into the dry with a spoon until it starts to form a ball that you can get your hands into without being too sticky. Don't over mix - over mixing bad.  Once you have a large ball, divide into three equal size balls (about 1 lb each).  I then spray Crisco on a cookie sheet and place the round ball on the sheet.  Flatten it down until the thickness is about 1/3" thick (or about 6" in diameter).  then cut it into 1/8 scone shaped pieces.  Break them apart and into the oven they go (pre-heated, 375 F) for about 16 to 18 minutes. Slide off of cookie sheets onto a cooling rack and enjoy. A note on ingrediants - have fun - try and come up with two things that sound good - Ginger/Pecan, Blueberry/Pecan, Ginger/Apricot, Coconut/Chocolate chip - Chocolate Chip, Ginger and mint extract instead of vanilla -- just let me know what you try that works.

This image is what I would call boring.  There is a lot in the background, there really is no definitive subject (and it is centered which is another no-no).  To get a little different prespective on the plant, I dropped down and put the sky in the background:

I thnk this is a little better because now the sky adds some feeling to the picture.  The plant stands tall against the background.  I still feel that there is too much distraction with the rest of the grasses.

This one is a lot closer to what I think is a good picture.  The plant is more isolated and the 'clutter' in this case adds to the picture because it is isolated along the bottom third of the picture.  Overall, not to bad, and if you compare the pictures above, you can see how changing your prospective can change the image greatly - these pictures are all of the same plant and all the pictures were within three minutes of each other.

The last image changes the dynamics - just get in close and focus on what is interesting about the plant.

Out of all the pictures I took of the plant for this demonstration, this is the one I like the best.  It has the grain in the seed pod, the background is completely blurred and the colors are rich in the golds.  Still the same plant and still within the three minute window.  The moral of this lesson/post is to look for that shot that you will want to put on the wall.

There is one more thing I should mention - keep an eye out for hazards when shooting.  I sometimes get lost in the moment and don't notice things I should, like this little girl - She posed for me, and was just a young rattlesnake, but I would have hated to lay down on the ground to get some of the above shots only to find her sticking her tongue out and shaking her rattle at me...