Buttermilk Scones

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Buttermilk Scones. It seems like the last few months the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes have been dishes that take a really long time to make. I was thrilled to make scones this time, because the come together very quickly and bake up in just a few minutes. I have made a number of difference scones, and I like scones a lot. Mine never rise quite as high as I hope, but that’s ok. You can get the recipe for these scones with a quick search of the web. Make sure you check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see how the other TWD bakers did this week.

My oven is still not working, but the part to fix it is on its way! I baked these in my microwave/convection oven, which is a bit different than a traditional oven. My oven has a quick cook feature where you say the type of food and then it calculates the weight of the food and sets the time for you. It’s very interesting! These baked for a lot longer than you would bake them in the traditional oven, but it works out.  It didn’t have a scone setting, but it did have a setting for homemade biscuits and that worked just fine. 

I find that if I try to cut in the butter by hand, I overwork the dough. I used the food processor to cut in the butter and then transferred the mixture to a bowl to proceed. I just patted the dough out in circles rather than rolling. Using a rolling pin on scones seems like overkill. These smelled great while baking and they taste great too. I served them with butter and jam. They have a slightly crispy exterior and are soft in the middle, very nice. While I will be glad to get my oven back working, it’s been fun seeing what I can do with my alternate oven.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, page 210

Apple and Cheddar Scones

My husband sent me this recipe for apple and cheddar scones, and I was intrigued. Apple scones sounded good. I know that savory scones can be great. Apple and cheddar are a natural pair. But I wasn’t sure what they would be like together. I had a little bit of cheese left over, just the right amount for this recipe, so I decided to give it a try.

Scones have to be eaten as soon as they come out of the oven. Thankfully scone recipes are usually quick and so you can make them up and serve fairly quickly. This scone requires a little more work, with cooking and cooling that apple/sugar mixture, then allowing the scone dough to chill. I made the apple/sugar mixture the night before, so the prep was quicker in the morning. The original (British) recipe called for 2 apples, but I know the apples I get in Washington State are much larger so I just went with one large apple. It seemed to be the right amount for the dough. Too much apple mixture and the dough wouldn’t have come together.

I just patted out the dough instead of rolling it out, which was very easy. I made one dozen scones with this recipe, cutting them in 3” rounds. These scones are interesting. I think they taste a bit, I don’t know, eggy? I like the apple and cheddar. I think they would be good served with soup, maybe squash soup or something like that. I think they would be better with a stronger cheddar, as the one I used was quite mild.

Apple and Cheddar Scones

1 large apple, peeled and diced

¼ cup sugar

1-2/3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces

2.5 ounces cheddar, grated

2 eggs

1 tablespoon heavy cream

Heavy cream, for brushing

Additional grated cheddar, for sprinkling

Put the apple and sugar in a small saucepan. Cook on medium, stirring frequently, until the apple is tender.   Transfer to a small bowl and allow to cool completely.

In a large mixer bowl, add the flour, baking powder, and butter. Mix until crumbly. Add the cool apple mixture, cheddar, and one egg; mix until the dough comes together loosely. Add the second egg and cream; mix just a bit more, until a shaggy dough forms. Form the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

Place the dough on a floured surface and pat into a ½” thick round. Using a round cookie cutter, cut scones and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Reshape the scraps of dough and cut additional scones. 

Brush the scones with cream and sprinkle with a little grated cheddar.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Recipe from Multiculti Kitchen

Cinnamon Date Scones

I was looking through the cupboard and trying to find a recipe to make where I didn’t have to go to the store. I had a cookbook of “Favorite Brand Name” recipes, which is basically a compilation of recipes from different food companies. I have another cookie cookbook like this and it’s actually a pretty good source for recipes. I find that the recipes are usually well tested and turn out great without much fuss.

I settled on these cinnamon date scones. I honestly didn’t think that I would have the ingredients, but these didn’t call for heavy cream. These just used milk or half and half, but I didn’t have that. Dates are something that’s typically around, as we buy those from Shields Date Gardens when we are in California. While dates do last a long time, after a while they get kind of hard and you should probably use them up. As this recipe only uses ½ cup of chopped dates, I didn’t really use that many but my intentions were good.

These scones follow fairly standard scone-making procedure: cut the butter in to the flour, and then add the wet ingredients. I found the mix a little dry with the eggs and the 1/3 cup milk, so I added a couple of extra tablespoons of milk to help it come together. I formed my dough into a circle and cut wedges, as I thought that would be easier than forming a rectangle and then cutting into triangles. I’ve always made scones this way and it’s hard to do something different. These are not very sweet, but you get lovely bursts of sweetness with the chopped dates, and the cinnamon sugar is a nice finishing touch. Not too bad for scrounging the kitchen in search of ingredients.

Cinnamon Date Scones

2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups flour

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces

½ cup chopped pitted dates

2 eggs

1/3 cup milk or half-and-half

2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Have a baking sheet ready.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the dates.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs and the milk. Whisk until thoroughly combined. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the egg mixture for topping the scones. Add the remaining egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Add additional milk if the mixture is too dry.

Turn out dough onto a floured surface. Knead dough gently a few turns and then pat into a circle about 8 inches in diameter. Cut the circle into 8 wedges. Place the wedges 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush with the reserved egg mixture and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Recipe from America’s Favorite Brand Name Old-Fashioned Favorites

Snickerdoodle Scones

It’s been a while since I made a snickerdoodle creation, and I thought these just looked fabulous. I forget how quick and easy scones are to put together; I don’t know why I don’t make them more often. One thing about scones is that you typically need to serve them right away. I usually bake in the afternoon and evening and don’t usually have somewhere to take them right away. I don’t want to serve anything but the best!

I had all of the ingredients for these on hand, which I can’t always say is the case for scones. Most scones use heavy cream, and sometimes I have that and sometimes I don’t. I did have it on hand, but these use sour cream instead, which probably helps give the scones that little tang you expect in a snickerdoodle. I appreciated that you cut in the butter with a food processor as I hate doing that by hand! It just seems like I work the dough too much and never get the butter evenly distributed when I do it by hand.

This dough was just so crumbly and I knew it would never come together with just the sour cream and egg, so I added a splash of heavy cream to help the dough come together. This helped tremendously but I was worried that I had manhandled the dough too much and that the scones wouldn’t rise. The dough was fairly forgiving and rose nicely, so that was a relief. I don’t know if it is the sour cream or what, but these scones stayed fresh for several days. Usually scones are rock hard by the next morning. I loved the flavor of these, I loved that the dough was forgiving, and I loved that these stayed fresh. A winner all around!

Snickerdoodle Scones

1/2 cup sour cream

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup butter, cut in pieces

Heavy cream, if required

1/4 cup cinnamon sugar

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and egg; refrigerate until needed.

In a large food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the butter and toss with a fork to cover. Pulse until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal flecked with pea-sized bits of butter, about 10 to 12 pulses. Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl.

Add sour cream mixture to flour mixture; fold with spatula until just combined. Add heavy cream if the mixture is too crumbly. Transfer the dough to lightly floured surface and knead dough just enough for it to hold together. Shape into an 8-inch circle. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Cut the dough into 8 wedges with a pizza cutter.

Separate and place the wedges on the prepared baking sheet and bake 15 to 18 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Make the glaze: combine the powdered sugar, milk and cinnamon in a small bowl and whisk until combined. This glaze should be fairly thick. Drizzle over the slightly cooled scones.

Recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen

Blueberry Cream Scones

I was talking to my mom and she mentioned this recipe that was in a magazine she gets. Well, I work in a library and I don’t subscribe to any magazines, but we happen to get this one at work. So all I had to do was remember to find the recipe when I was at work the next day. I got the magazine out, but then left it on the reference desk. When I remembered that I had left it there, it was there, open to this recipe! It looked so good and was easy to boot.

I met my mom on Mother’s Day yesterday to celebrate and I thought it would be nice to make these for her. I love to bake and take scones, so that they are still warm when I deliver them, but I get to work too early to bake before work. I was meeting my mom in the morning, but not too early, so I was able to bake these and deliver them. They took about 15 minutes to mix together and then a short time to bake. I give a fairly large range for the baking time. The original recipe said 17-20 minutes and mine weren’t anywhere near done after than amount of time. After 25 minutes they were nicely browned (although still a touch soft in the center).

The magazine calls these biscuits but I just don’t have the heart to do that. These are cream scones, plain and simple! I used frozen blueberries, which may be why my scones are a touch soft, but I think that was a perfect substitute. I really liked these; they aren’t too sweet and the blueberry flavor comes through very well. The magazine suggested you serve these with blueberry sauce, which would also be good. But like all scones, they are good by themselves or simply served with some butter. 

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup blueberries

1-1/2 cups whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Stir in the blueberries. Add the whipping cream and stir just until moistened. 

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough just 4-5 turns. Shape into an 8-inch square and place on the prepared baking sheet. With a bench scraper or a pizza cutter, score the dough into 16 squares, leaving the scones intact. 

Bake for 18-25 minutes or until golden brown. Pull apart to serve.

Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens