If you are looking for an alternative to the typical cinnamon buns on Christmas morning, look no further! I have the best and easiest recipe for scones ever. These things are awesome. And they will completely impress your family, after all, who makes scones from scratch? Surprisingly, the ingredients are few and the steps easy.
I got this recipe at a cooking class I took at a Viking cooking store many years ago. My mother in law gave me this class as a Christmas present about 4 years ago. The class was fantastic. When you arrived, they served you coffee and fresh fruit, they cleaned your cooking stations and washed your dishes while you cooked, and basically waited on you while you enjoyed your day and learned some new tricks in the kitchen. I totally recommend the experience!
Anyway, my favorite recipe from that day was the one for scones. I had always stayed away for scones thinking of them as dry, but these are not at all. I have also added different things to them - chocolate chips, blue berries, candied orange peel, cranberries. You just throw into the batter whatever you want to punch up the favor.
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
4 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes and chilled
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
Preheat oven to 425F
Place flour, baking powder, salt and 3 tablespoons of sugar in a bowl or food processor. (I don't have a food processor, so I do the mixing here with a fork).
Pulse several times to combine everything (or mix it with your fork)
Add butter to mixture, scattering it throughout.
Pulse 12 to 15 times, getting the mixture to resemble coarse meal.
If you are using a fork, kind of cut the butter into the mixture, breaking it up slightly and mixing it. It takes about 5-10 minutes to do this by hand, just keep going, it works. You want the consistency to be a bit ragged and coarse.
Toss in whatever you are adding (chocolate chips are my favorite). You probably only need about 1 cup of this. Eyeball this and add more if it looks like it isn't mixed throughout.
Transfer to a mixing bowl if you were using a food processor.
Add 1 cup of heavy cream and continue to stir with a fork until it forms a shaggy dough.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead it until the dough comes together. This is like playing with play dough and mixing all the colors together, use the palms of your hands to press through the dough. Be careful if you added berries to not crush them too badly.
Pat the dough into about an 8 inch circle about 2 inches thick.
Cut the dough into 8 wedges like a pizza and place on an untreated baking sheet, placing them slightly apart. You could also cut the dough into cute little shapes if you really wanted to all out!
Whisk together 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon heavy cream, brush over tops of scones.
Bake until tops are golden brown and firm, about 12-15 minutes.
Cool for about 10 minutes before serving.
It seems like a lot of steps as I type it, but seriously it is easy and totally uncomplicated. And it will impress your family, because I mean really, homemade scones!?
I have made the dough the night before too and just let it warm up a bit before putting it into the oven on Christmas morning. I also brushed the sugar mixture on the scones in the morning, I wasn't sure how that would do in the fridge over night. It would probably work, but why chance it.
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