The culinary ramblings of a picky eater.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Scones


Ever made scones from scratch? So. Good. I made a bunch for a get together recently, and I will be making them again someday. I broke up this basic recipe from allrecipes.com into thirds and made three different flavors: Cinnamon Raisin, Orange Cranberry, and Chocolate Chip. Two thumbs up from this gal. You could make so many variations, it's not even funny. I also made little scone babies instead of huge monster scones. The original recipe makes the huge monsters-one round cut into 12ths. All in all, I broke the dough into sixths (two rounds per flavor), made my rounds, then cut 8 wedges of each round. I also froze the scone wedges after I cut them, and baked them later, and they were still amazing. I wrapped each wedge seperately in wax paper, then wrapped each flavor (16 wedges) in foil. This made a lot of little scone babies, so if you're not making them for a gathering of people like I did, this is a good option to keep the dough "fresh" and let you bake them as needed. And they're amazing.
Ingredients:
-1 cup sour cream
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 cup white sugar
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 cup butter
-1 egg

Directions:
In a small bowl, mix together the sour cram and baking soda, then set it aside. See how it looks like it bubbled up and expanded a bit? Yeah, it did. Keave some extra room in the bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until lit looks kinda like corn meal, then mix in the sour cream mixture and the egg. Don't over mix it...just let it get moistened.

At this point, I split the dough in thirds, then mixed in the flavors: For Cinnamon Raisin, about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 cup raisins. For Orange Cranberry, about 1/2 teaspoon orange zest, and 1/8 cup orange juice, and 1/2 cup dried cranberries. For Chocolate Chip, about 1/2 cup chocolate chips.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently for a minute, not very long. Form into rounds, about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges, place on cookie sheet, and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Enjoy!