Cranberry Orange Scones

I think a good scone is one of the most perfect baked goods.  In my opinion, a good scone is light and flaky, with a touch of sweetness, and most importantly, it can stand on its own.  It does not need jam or heaven forbid, more butter to make complete.  It is perfect all by itself, along side a cup of coffee or tea.

I think Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa, is the queen of scones.  She is also the queen of cream and butter.  I have experimented with her scone recipes for a while now, and I've decided that low fat buttermilk is an acceptable substitute for heavy cream in her scone recipes.  I have tried to reduce the amount of butter she uses, but quite frankly, if you reduce the amount of butter too much it changes the texture and the integrity of the scones.  If you are not willing to use some butter in a recipe, don't bother making scones.

The key to making good scones is making sure butter your butter is ice cold and work quickly.  As a matter of fact, your buttermilk or cream should be very cold as well. If you handle the dough too much, the heat from your hands will melt the butter and will result in dense scones.  You want to see small bits of butter in your dough. This dough freezes well too.  You can mix up a batch, cut them out and freeze them before you bake them.  I put the cut-out scones on a pan lined with a silpat, place the pan in the freezer, and freeze for about an hour.  After they are frozen, I remove them from the pan and pop them into a ziplock freezer bag and keep them for a rainy day. When you want to bake them, just pop them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or silpat, brush with egg wash, and sprinkle with sugar.  They do not need to be defrosted and take just 5 minutes longer to bake.
  

This recipe makes a lot of scones.  I made a batch for our October staff meeting along with Pumkin Ginger Nut Muffins that can be found on Simply Recipes.

I think I ended up with 20 scones.  Obviously, you can change the yield by using a different sized cutter.  If you don't want 20 scones, cut the recipe in half. I usually cut the recipe in half, and still freeze half.  It's a good idea to only bake as many as you will consume in a day or two. 

An Early Scone Season: Cranberry Almond Scones

Sunday was a beautiful dry and breezy day.  The evening was cool and delightful. So what the heck, I thought, let's brave it and not turn the air conditioner on tonight.  I am somewhat addicted to the white noise of my air conditioner.  I think my pup Sweetpea is too.  It blocks out all the random street (and air) noises that are a part of suburban living.  I usually hate the air conditioner-to-open-window transition period.  The drone of airplanes and distant trains, the sound of the newspaper delivery person's car and the "FLOP" of the paper hitting the sidewalk, not to mention the scream of a motorcycle at 2:00AM tearing down the Southern State Parkway, all drive me crazy.  Oh, and how can I forget the birds? I thought birds woke up at dawn. Not in my neighborhood!  At 3:00AM they're having a party.  If I manage to sleep through any of these annoyances, Sweetpea does not.

Much to my AMAZEMENT, it was an eerily quite night. I had a wonderful night's sleep. It was so quiet I don't even think Sweetpea woke up until the newspaper was delivered....not bad. I can't help but wonder, what happened to the birds?  And the strangest thing of all....I was cold!  Yes, it was downright chilly!  I pried myself from under the covers and headed to the kitchen  It was 53degrees outside.  I don't know what the temperature was inside the house, but since we had left several windows open, there was a definite nip in the air.  

A perfect reason to light the oven I thought.  I checked out the pantry and my eyes focused on a sack of oat flour that I picked up at the King Arthur Baker's Center in Vermont a few weeks ago.  I had some buttermilk that I wanted to use up as well.

 and then I remembered my new fluted cutters from King Arthur's...

SCONES!   ...It's a perfect morning for scones.