Everybody Must Get Sconed!

That was a tag line for my website when I owned Naked Baker.  I had one of those license plate holders made at the mall for my car.  You know the ones with sayings like “My grandchild is cuter than yours” or “Zero to Bitch in 24 seconds?”  Mine said “nakedbaker.com”on the top and “Everybody Must Get Sconed” on the bottom.  Someone stole it right off my vehicle in a parking lot in broad daylight after having it on my bumper for one week!  So much for free advertising.

People loved my scones.  Customers would say “I just got back from London.  Your scones are better than the ones at Harrods!”  “I was just in New York  and your lemon scones are so much better than the scones at The Plaza”.  I never got tired of the compliments.  They never got tired of the scones.

Break time with Apricot Scone and a hot cup of coffee

 BASIC SCONE

3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 heaping tablespoon baking powder

1 stick (1/4 pound) unsalted butter, very cold and cut into small pieces

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup half n half or heavy cream

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

dash of nutmeg or spice of choice

1/2 cup dried fruit or nuts

Preheat oven 400 degrees.  Parchment or Silpat lined baking sheets

Place flour, sugar,  baking powder  and salt in food processor.  Add cold butter pieces and pulse until mixture is somewhat crumbly.  Transfer to a mixing bowl.  Add dried fruit or nuts.  Make a well in the center of flour/fruit mixture.  Stir together half n half, egg and vanilla.  Pour into the center well and quickly mix by hand until flour incorporated the liquid.  Do not overwork the dough.  Dump out onto a floured surface and gently knead and smooth into a round disk shape.  Flatten with your hands or use a rolling pin until the dough is about 3/4 of an inch thick.  Cut with a floured biscuit cutter or cut dough disk into wedges.  Place on a parchment or Silpat lined sheet pan.

You can (A) brush the tops with melted butter and bake, (B) Melted butter and sugar and bake or (C) Do what I like to do:

Equal amounts of butter and sugar.  Before you make the scone dough, cut butter into chunks and freeze.  Put frozen butter and sugar into food processor and pulse until you have fine crumbs.  Working quickly and with cool hands, top each scone with the butter/sugar combo. 

Bake for 17 minutes in the center rack of oven.  Bottoms should be browned and tops firm

 

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