When I’m in the mood for something a little sweet but not in the mood to make a bunch of cookies, I make a batch of scones. They are easy, take a lot less time, and leave me feeling less guilty. Even better, you don’t have to remember to leave butter out to soften hours before mixing the dough. Here is a recipe I use from Martha Stewart Living:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into cubes, chilled
1/2 cup dried cherries
1 large egg
5 tbsp heavy cream (I use whatever milk I have in the house and it works)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
This can be done in a food processor much like a pie crust, but I don’t have a large food processor so I do it by hand. It takes a little longer, but isn’t hard to do at all. First, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt .
Cube 6 tbsp of butter
Add to dry ingredients
If you are using a food processor now is the time to pulse the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. However, if you are like me, then take a pastry cutter (or a fork)…
…and work the ingredients until it resembles said crumbs
At this point you can add whatever bells and whistles you have on hand. One of my favorite combinations is dried cranberries with white chocolate chips. This time around I was in the mood for butterscotch and chocolate chips. However, I think next time I will try pecan pieces and toffee chips because that sounds fun and they called my name from the pantry shelf as I was grabbing the butterscotch and chocolate morsels. I forgot to add my chips at this step and instead went to the next step which is adding 1 large egg (slightly beaten) mixed with 5 tbsp of milk.
After mixing that for a minute, I remembered the chips.
Whew! No harm done except I forgot the girls mixed white chocolate chips in with the butterscotch the other day so I had a surprise addition to the dough.
Once you’ve mixed the ingredients together as much as you can with a fork, switch to using your hands. If there is one thing I learned from cooking with my friend Jason, who used to be a chef in his prior life, it’s that you can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. So take off your rings and dig in! Work the butter through the dough until it comes together in a nice sticky, but not too sticky, disc. Pat it down until it is about 1 inch thick all the way across.
Use a pizza cutter to slice the disc into pieces, brush with cream, sprinkle with sugar, and lay on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. This is an excellent time to use a Silpat if you own one. I lost mine in a move 2 years ago and miss it terribly. My wax paper tends to smoke toward the end of cooking… don’t be alarmed if yours does the same thing.
Place the cookie sheet on the middle rack in your pre-heated oven and bake the scones 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.
Allow to cool slightly and then eat two one with a tall glass of milk.
(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss
Comments (12)
I’ve never seen scones with choc. chips in them. Interesting! When I was growing up, my Mom would make them round, cut them in half and put raspberry jam and whipped cream in the middle. I can still remember what the kitchen looked like after one of her scone baking afternoons. Good memories!
MIght I suggest parchment paper (I use this http://www.reynoldsparchment.com/ ) instead of waxed paper – it works much like silpat and it won’t leave you with smoking melted wax.
I love scones – so fast, so many yummy combinations.
I’m going to try lemon rind and dried cranberries tonight! Thanks for all your recipes! 🙂
I second the parchment paper recommendation! Worth every penny!
Yum the jam and whip cream sounds good. I shall try. Rachel just recently had had blueberry muffins with egg in them recently and had no reactions! YEAH!! So maybe I will try these if I have enough butter.. WOW! That’s a lot of butter. 🙂
Mmmm the scones look so tasty!I may have to try this recipe sometime! Thanks!
YUM!!! YUM!!! YUM!!! not as much butter as I thought.. We put Chocolate Chips and Pink sprinkles on top!
Thanks!!
PS- I used the parchment paper and had no burning problems.
These look good, but I don’t think you should feel any less quilty eating them…my figures put them at about 25 grams of fat each!!! Replacing the chips with dried fruit would help, but they are still just under 20 grams each. Sorry…..
Riley and I are big fans of scones and they are almost as easy to make as they are to get at the store…Chocolate chips are definitely our favorite. But I also enjoy the cranberry with white chocolate chips vvery much too.
Ryan looks absolutely adorable at his dr. appt. So good to see good news.
Made these tonight with a few alterations because I didn’t have everything in the receipe. Both my choc chips and craisins went AWOL, so I resorted to frozen blueberries. I had no unsalted butter, so I used salted and eliminated the salt in the recipe. Also, I just lightly greased the cookie sheet instead of using any paper.
They turned out great in spite of the modifications. Now I just need a good recipe for some clotted cream… Thanks for sharing!
Andrea – (from http://www.cooksrecipes.com)
This specialty of Devonshire, England (which is why it’s also known as Devonshire or Devon cream) is traditionally made by gently heating rich, unpasteurized milk until a semisolid layer of cream forms on the surface. After cooling, the thickened cream is removed. Since unpasteurized milk is not easily attained in the US, here is a recipe that comes close to the real thing. Clotted cream can be spread on bread or spooned atop fresh fruit or desserts. The traditional English “cream tea” consists of clotted cream and jam served with scones and tea.
Clotted Cream
2 cups heavy cream
Cook cream in top of double boiler over simmering water until reduced by about half. It should be the consistency of butter, with a golden “crust” on the top.
Transfer, including crust, to bowl. Cover and let stand 2 hours, then refrigerate at least 12 hours.
Stir crust into cream before serving. Keep unused portions refrigerated, tightly covered, for up to 4 days.
Also a modified version using mascarpone cheese instead of unpasteurized cream here at joy of cooking: http://www.joyofbaking.com/DevonshireCream.html
Thinking of you while I make these today!