Had some scone baking time with friends this week so thought I’d pass along some tips.
First choose a recipe. I wanted to try a new one so chose a lemon cranberry scone.
We look for a couple of things in a recipe: a high baking temperature, buttermilk or milk instead of cream (makes it a bit lighter) and some favorite flavors.
http://www.nurselovesfarmer.com/2014/01/lemon-cranberry-scones/
I do things like grating zest, squeezing lemons, prepping the baking pan and pre-heating the oven prior to starting to put the ingredients together. This way I can go right through the recipe without having to stop
Butter needs to be really cold when making scones. One trick is to grate it before you add it but I find that too much bother. I cut the butter into small pieces then — really important —
Put the butter into the freezer until you are ready to add it to the recipe. This ensures it is really cold which makes your scone rise a little higher.
Have your food processor ready with the dough blade inserted.
Next, add the dry ingredients and pulse several times to mix.
Then take the butter out of the freezer and distribute on top of the dry ingredients. Pulse about 10 times or so until butter is mixed in and you have little pebbles formed.
Add additional ingredients. In this recipe it was the lemon zest, lemon juice, buttermilk and cranberries. I added the zest, juice and half the buttermilk first and pulsed about 10 times then scraped down the sides. Add the rest of the buttermilk. When everything is incorporated (about 10 pulses) add the cranberries and pulse three or four times.
Turn out the dough onto parchment paper and form into a disc about an inch or so thick. Cut the dough into eight pieces using a pizza cutter. Works great.
Have the triangles an inch or so apart as they expand when they bake. Place in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until browned on top.
Remove from oven and place on cooling rack for a few minutes. then — the best part — you get to eat them. Serve with your favorite jam or clotted cream. I didn’t make the glaze for these but you certainly could. Would make them even more scrumptious.
Serve the scones with your favorite jam and some clotted cream or lemon curd.
Absolutely delicious and easy to put together. Not much clean up either which is an added bonus.
Firm on the outside and tender on the inside. You can freeze these and then reheat before you serve.
Reheating should be done in the oven and not the microwave for best results.
Enjoy!