Breakfast Scone Recipe

Are you home for the holidays or ready for a leisurely breakfast? Try making my scone master recipe. Scones are quick to make for a special morning breakfast. These scones are beautiful to look at, they taste wonderful and the scent of baking scones filling the house is enough to get most anybody to the breakfast table.

If you want to make dairy free scones, substitute non-hydrogenated shortening or lard for the butter and plain or vanilla soy milk (or other type of milk) for the cow milk. You can alter the ingredients to make a variety of scones.

Some of my favorite scone variations are: Cherry Pecan (with dried tart cherries), Wild Blueberry, Cranberry Orange Scones (orange zest & dried cranberries), Lemon Poppyseed (with lemon zest), Chocolate Orange Nut (with orange zest, chocolate drops & nuts). Experiment and have fun with this recipe.

Time: 10 - 15 minutes to prepare, 15 minutes to bake Yield: About 8 - 10 scones (depending on how you cut the dough)
Tools: Hand held pastry cutter, OR a food processor OR 2 dinner forks
standard size flat baking pan (one that fits in your oven), oven, spatula, 2 bowls. Optional: Vitamix

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour (I use unbleached white mostly, sometimes I'll substitute 1/2 cup of whole grain flour -- more than 1/2 cup makes for a very heavy scone)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 cup brown or white sugar
• 1/2 sea salt
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• OPTIONAL:
  
• • 1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries (wild are best as they are small)
    
  • 1/2 cup dried fruits such as: raisins, chopped apricots, pitted cherries, sweetened cranberries, etc.
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts such as: pecans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon (more or less to taste) of spice such as: cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, coriander, ginger
  • 2 Tablespoons poppy seeds
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh orange or lemon peel zest (don't scrape off the white part of the rind as it will be bitter).

Optional Topping: Mix 1/2 cup powdered sugar with 1 Tablespoon of liquid to make a glaze. Suggested liquids are: espresso, orange juice, fruit / chocolate / or maple syrup, milk, water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spray a baking pan with release or grease it with butter/shortening.
3. In a Vitamix or by hand using a fork and a bowl: beat together until frothy - eggs, milk
4. In a large dry bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, sea salt.
5. Using a pastry cutter, food processor or 2 dinner forks, cut the butter into the dry mix until the mix resembles coarse meal and there aren't any chunks of butter much larger than 1 grain of rice.
6. Add any fruits, nuts and/or spices to this mix.

Then. . . .

1. All at once add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir just until the dry mix is saturated. Don't over mix or the scones won't rise.
2. Dust a little flour onto a clean counter and after flouring your hands, pour the batter on to the counter (it should be almost like a very wet biscuit dough).
3. Sprinkle a little flour on the dough and knead it for about 5 - 10 strokes. To knead the dough, pat it down til it's easy to grab the far edge. Bring that edge over the front edge of the dough (by your belly) and make push it together hard with both hands. Do this a few more times, turning it until the dough is easy to pat into a shape.(Sprinkle on more flour if dough is too sticky).
   
4. Pat dough into a circle about 1" thick.
5. Just like you'd cut a pie, cut the dough into wedges.
6. Transfer the dough to the pan (with a pancake spatula) and spread them on the baking pan at least 1/2" apart so they won't grow into each other as they cook.

Bake the scones at 425 until browned. About 15 minutes.

Pour glaze on when the scones are cool enough to eat. (optional)