Vibrantly green, these little Matcha Scones with Lemon Drizzle are fragrant with lemon, and the delicate notes of the Green tea sing strong and true throughout the scone.

Holiday fever is out in full force now that Thanksgiving Day has passed. Endless variations of the same five holiday carols are dancing along the air as the frantic consumerism that the big box stores have so carefully cultivated explodes in glittered red and gold and green chaos. The hubs and I were able to spend the holiday with a friend and her family, and it was a wonderful experience. Delicious food, a few adorable kidelts, and being able to spend time with a really beautiful family made my heart sing. The next morning with two frantically packing people and two extremely suspicious cats warily eyeing the flutter of activity, the hubs and I departed our little town for a weekend getaway to Vegas. We had a few set activities planned, such as tickets for the Blue Man Group, a restaurant I have long wanted to visit for the Sage Fried Chicken Benedict (Hash House a Go Go), and just meandering down the Strip and Freemont Street, giddily gambling away all our fortunes. (Note: we survived and no gangsters are after us in attempts to collect money.)

Immediately after leaving Las Vegas, I had an infusion scheduled. Every two weeks, it is like a well oiled machine at this point, unless my veins furiously rebel and it takes a few tries to get an IV inserted. This infusion went ultra smooth, but the hour observation time after the infusion ends allowed me to reflect upon my journey with NMO thus far. One of the most prominent points I kept coming back to was that while I have taken a great deal of time to learn about the pathology of the disease itself, and there are more resources available to educate oneself about the disease and the medications that one uses to help prevent relapses, there is so much information floating about that is now out of date. An unnervingly vast amount of medical professionals are still classifying this disease as a variant of MS if they are not informed about the very distinct differences between Neuro Myelitis Optica (NMO) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Matcha is such a distinct flavor that is balanced perfectly with a bit of sugar and lemon zest in the scone itself. The Lemon Drizzle is what really takes these little scones to the next level though!

While word of mouth, spreading awareness, and being an advocate are vital in advocating for any disease, it is just as important to not only get the name of the disease out there as is to ensure the proper and current information is what is educating the general public and even medical professionals. NMO, while it is a demyelinating disease SIMILAR to MS, is in fact its own distinct disease where there is a specific biomarker (AQP4) that your blood and spinal fluid are tested for. If you are positive for the AQP4 antibody, you definitively are diagnosed with NMO. While there are a couple of immune suppressive therapies that overlap between the two distinct diseases, it is important to note that for NMO there are other immune suppressants used as preventative therapies. Time and time again, clinical data has shown that if a patient is definitively diagnosed with NMO through the AQP4 blood test and they had prior been diagnosed with MS and on MS therapies, the disease course is most likely more destructive and more damage is accumulated due to the patient being on medication not specific for NMO.

NMO is a disease where the damage done to the spine, optic nerves, and brain stem during the acute, or active, portion of an attack is where the disability can occur if not treated immediately to try and halt the inflammation being done. This means that if a relapse is detected quickly and proper treatment administered, the amount of damage is hopefully minimal. On MRI reports it is TYPICAL, though there are some outliers out there, that lesions presenting will be long (more than 2-3 vertebrae) and more central in NMO, which differentiates from MS lesions which tend to be shorter and more on the outside regions of the vertebra. Since the revision of the 2015 diagnostic criteria of NMO, it has become termed a Spectrum Disorder, NMOSD, which some patients can be diagnosed with NMOSD even if they do not immediately present with the AQP4 antibody. Lesions to the brain stem area are also included in this diagnostic criteria, which was just a mere 10 years ago not included and thought to be a rare presentation of NMO. Research and the NMO-IgG test for AQP4 has since shown that brain stem lesions are much more common than prior research indicated. For myself, brain stem lesions are what led to my diagnosis even before the bloodworm came back - all those insane bouts of hiccuping and vomiting and nausea for weeks on end are one of the ways a brain stem lesion presents itself. I am fortunate that my autonomic functions such as breathing, etc were not affected, because in cases an attack of the brain stem lesion can lead to permanent ventilation or even death due to affecting those autonomic functions.

With NMO, at times it is difficult to differentiate between what is a true relapse and what is a pseudo relapse, and I think it is vitally important to know and understand your own body to be able to distinguish between the two. The few weeks before Thanksgiving I had been overly fatigued, and contacted my doctors regarding an alarming increase in tingling in one of my feet. Turns out, my insomnia is raging and severely exaserbated residual symptoms from a prior attack that I had not felt in two years. During this time, another one of my NMO sisters was going through her own relapse. An active attacks always a terrifying thing as you never know exactly what deficits you will be left with afterwards (loss of mobility, sight, etc) and in my NMO sisters case, it was so difficult watching her struggle through trying to get proper treatment during the first week. Medical professionals especially need to learn the difference between an NMO attack versus an MS attack, because those of us with NMO do not have the luxury to wait for treatment during an active attack - the damage being done could result in permanent disability. Our disease is not progressive, but the damage from the attacks can be cumulative. In my own case, the multiple bouts of Optic Neuritis that were untreated ultimately led to enough damage in both eyes that I am legally blind in my left eye and almost completely blind in my right.

Sweet, tangy with lemon, the acidity of the Lemon Drizzle perfectly complements the Matcha Scone.

With a few NMO sisters and brother’s permission, I am posting links to their own personal journeys with NMO and how they have adapted to life after diagnosis. I urge you to read them, because each person’s journey with this disease is so different, but each spirit is so strong when thrown such a massive curveball.

Heather’s Journey

Arif’s Journey

Ashlee’s Journey

One of the major reasons research funding and clinicians are able to study NMO and advance medical knowledge every day is because of this incredible foundation. If you explore the site, it has some great general knowledge about NMO and helps connect patients to doctors that have interacted with NMO throughout their medical careers. There is also an app they created for patients to have with them in case of medical emergency - they can show them the site in the ER if the doctors are not familiar with NMO.

The Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation

Now, you may be asking how scones tie in to this post at all. Bright green is the color for NMO awareness - like how bright pink ribbons are associated with Breast Cancer, bright green is our color. Bright green Matcha Powder is what makes these scones so vibrant, and for me, they represent NMO in a positive and delicious way!

Green is for NMO! Spread awareness about this rare autoimmune disorder while eating something absolutely delicious!

Matcha Scones with Lemon Drizzle

Author: Iris Anna Gohn

Servings: 8 Scones

These little scones are eunbelievably delicate if you eat them right from the oven, and almost shatter between your teeth as you bite into them - in a completely great way. As they cool, the texture becomes a bit more firm, but are still incredibly tender and moist. The scones are really best eaten the day you make them, but if you end up with leftovers they keep well in a Ziplock bag on the counter for up to 3 days - just rejuvenate the scone for a couple minutes in a toaster oven to re-crisp the edges.

Matcha is incredibly distinct, vibrant, and grassy in flavor. It is a very potent green tea taste, and its delicate floral notes are brought out with a bit of sweetener. These scones are very lightly sweet, with a lemon hint in the scone itself, but the very sharp, acidity sweet Lemon Drizzle Glaze is what makes each mouthful so delicious - it complements the floral, grassy notes of the scone beautifully.

These scones are my little tribute to NMO with the vibrant green color, but I think they are a deliciously different way to celebrate the upcoming holiday season with their bright green. They kind of look like little Christmas trees, and you can glaze them accordingly, and even add colored sprinkles if you were going to make them for a Holiday Brunch.

Ingredients

For the Matcha Scone:

2 Tbsp Granulated White Sugar
Zest of 1 Lemon
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp Matcha Powder
1 Tbsp Baking POWDER
1/2 Tsp Sea Salt
6 Tbsp Very Cold Butter, Cubed
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Honey
1/2 Tsp Vanilla

For the Lemon Drizzle Glaze:

1 Cup Confectioner’s Sugar
1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

Directions

For the Matcha Scones:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with Parchment Paper and set aside.
Cube the butter into small pieces and put into the freezer while you prepare other ingredients.
In a large bowl, gently incorporate the granulated sugar with the lemon zest until the sugar is perfumed with the oils from the zest. Add in the flour, Matcha Powder, baking powder, and salt and whisk together until everything is incorporated well.
In a measuring cup, combine the heavy cream, honey, and vanilla and set aside.
Take the dry ingredients and add in the very cold butter. Swiftly incorporate the butter into the flour with your fingers until evenly distributed, and the butter chunks are roughly about the size of a pea. It should feel like clumpy, fine sand dotted with pebbles at this point. Green, of course!
Pour the cream/vanilla/honey mixture into the large bowl containing the butter/flour mixture. Gently stir together with a wooden spoon, then with lightly floured hands dump the shaggy mass onto the countertop and shape into a 6-8 inch circle. The quicker you work, the less the butter will soften. The circle should be roughly an inch and a half thick.
With a very sharp knife or bench cutter, divide your dough into 8 triangles. Place on the lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes. This allows the butter to firm up before baking, resulting in a more flaky product.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, then remove the scones to cool on a wire rack set over parchment paper. Scones will be tender and golden brown on top.
Cool 10 minutes before attempting to add the glaze, otherwise the warmth of the scone will have the icing run off the sides too easily. I drizzled just zig-zags, but you can be as creative as you want in patterning the tops of the scones!

For the Lemon Drizzle:

In a bowl, gently mix together the Confectioner’s’ sugar and the lemon juice until a glaze forms. You want it to be a bit on the thicker side so the drizzles are nice and crisp and clean, but if you like a runnier glaze, add a bit more lemon juice. The viscosity of the glaze I made was about a thick molasses.