Consider the Scone
For the home baker, morning pastries fall into two distinct categories: ones you should buy and ones you should make. The ones you should buy are generally anything in the croissant, danish, and doughnut realm. (We might revise that to say that an ambitious person could, if they wanted to spend hours in the kitchen or an apartment that smelled like McDonald’s, make these items; but generally, we’d leave those to someone else). However, certain other pastries, like muffins, popovers, and scones are unquestionably better when turned out fresh from your own kitchen. Though scones are among our favorites, we have yet to provide you with a recipe. Please accept our apologies.
A side note: chances are that even if you think you don’t like scones, you probably do. You may have quite rightly dismissed them after eating an iced paperweight masquerading as a scone from your local coffee shop. Put that memory out of your mind. You like scones. Everyone likes scones. But you need the right scone, and in this city*, that is most likely the one that you have made yourself.
Scones are a cinch to make; if you’ve ever made pie dough (and even if you haven’t), you can make a scone. But since they are so very near and dear to us, we do have some rules.
A perfect scone should be both crumbly and tender, never dry, and a crispy brown on the edges. Also very important: scones should contain dried fruit: currants, cherries, apricots, we don’t really care, as long as there is absolutely no chance that it will ooze. On this point, we’re quite the stickler. Though we’ve been told that delicious scones have been made with fresh strawberries and the like, there’s something indelicate about juice bleeding out of a scone; and scones are nothing if not delicate. On icing, we love it, but not on scones. Scones may have a restrained dusting of sugar, but that is all.
Of course, most of these rules should be dismissed as the ravings of a scone curmudgeon. If you must be more free-thinking with your scones, so be it. They’ll probably be delicious. A recipe for our favorite scones is after the break.
*We do know of one place in Seattle that makes delicious scones and that is the cafe at Swanson’s nursery. What’s more, the cafe is inside the nursery’s lovely conservatory where you can eat your scone beneath a banana tree alongside a pond with carp.
Cream Scones
Makes 8 scones
These scones hold up well and are even great toasted the next day.
2 cups all-purpose flour (280 grams)
1/4 cup sugar (45 grams)
large pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter (4 ounces), cut into 1/2” pieces and chilled
3/4 cup dried fruit (our favorite combination is mostly currants with a couple of tablespoons of chopped candied ginger)
1/2 cup cream
1 egg
Additional cream and large crystal or regular sugar for dusting
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and cream. By hand or with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until it is roughly the size of lentils. Add the dried fruit and mix until combined. Slowly mix in just enough of the liquid mixture so that the dough hangs together when pressed (you may need a couple more tablespoons of cream if the dough seems too dry). Ideally, the dough should be neither dry in patches, nor sticky to the touch. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a circle about 1” thick. Cut into 8 even triangles.
Set scones on a sheet pan and if you have some cream around, brush the tops of the scones with cream and dust with sugar. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
These scones can also be assembled, cut and then frozen for up to a month. To bake the scones, just treat them as normal and increase the bake time as necessary.
