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Basic Scones
| Yield | |
|---|---|
| Source | Barely adapted from Allrecipes.com |
| Prep time | 45 minutes |
| Recipe Tags |
Description
I'm not really sure what an authentic scone is supposed to taste like, but I like this recipe because it produces similar scones to those of the coffee shop (note: not Starbucks, and not at all like Starbuck's scones) where I worked in college. They're more of a sweet biscuit than a muffin in both taste and texture, and they're always well-received. You can make these in single-serving large scones, or cut them smaller for snack-sized scones
Ingredients
| 2 | c | flour |
| 1⁄3 | c | sugar |
| 1 | t | baking powder |
| 1⁄4 | t | Baking Soda |
| 1⁄2 | t | Salt |
| 1⁄2 | c | butter (1 stick, or 4 oz, frozen) |
| 1⁄2 | c | sour cream |
| 1 | Egg |
Instructions
- Make sure that your oven rack is in the lower middle position (for me, this is the default), and preheat to 400 F.
- Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the frozen butter directly into the dry ingredients. Rub the shaved butter into the flour mixture with your fingers until it resembles coarse meal.
- If adding something to your scones (see Notes), do so now.
- Whisk together the egg and the sour cream, then add to the flour mixture. Stir just until the dough comes together (it will be sticky, and it may be easier to use your hands).
-
Turn out onto a well-floured surface and pat into discs about 3/4" thick.
- For large scones, form one disk and cut into 8 wedges
- For small scones, form two disks and cut each into six wedges
- For mini scones, form three disks and cut each into six wedges
- Transfer the scones to a cookie sheet (lined is a good idea) and bake 15-17 minutes (more like 12 for mini scones) until scones are golden.
Notes
- Don't overwork the dough - stir it as little as you can, and just pat together, don't roll it out.
- For fruit scones, add 1/2 c dried berries, chopped apricots, currants or raisins (eww). My personal favorite is to rub a teaspoon of lemon zest into the sugar, then add dried blueberries at step 4.
- For chocolate scones, chop good dark chocolate into smallish chunks and add 1/2 c of it at step 4.
- For lemon-poppy scones, rub the zest of one lemon into the sugar and add 3 T poppyseeds at step 4. At step 5, whisk in 1/2 tsp of lemon extract for additional lemon flavor (I think they need the extract)
- The aforementioned coffeeshop used to add these little nuggets of cinnamon sugar that looked to be really just cinnamon and sugar, rather than the awful cinnamon "baking chips," which are the only thing I've been able to find in stores. Mixed into the scones, they provided little pockets of cinnamon flavor in the scones. Someday I'll figure out how to duplicate them, because they were awesome.
- If it floats your boat, make a thin icing of powdered sugar and a bit of milk and drizzle it over your scones. I don't think they need it.
- These don't keep well - they're much better fresh than they are the next day. You can probably freeze before baking if you want to make them ahead of time.
