11 May 2008

Scones for Mother's Day!

I finished off my junior year of college [woo hoo, I'm a senior!] and made my way home on Thursday. I've been itching to bake. I have a list of at least 5 different cupcakes I want to try, as well as brownies and cookies. Unfortunately, we've been very busy around the house lately and I've been sick so I've had to control myself, which went pretty well...until this morning! I wanted to do something special for Mom for Mother's Day and I figured I could bake something for her. She loves scones, so I decided I would wake up early and bake some blackberry scones for breakfast. After much searching through www.allrecipes.com I found this recipe, which received rave reviews. I altered the recipe slightly and the finished product was absolutely amazing, so I'll post my version.

Basic Scones
3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a baking sheet and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl and then stir into the flour mixture until moist. NOTE: You may not need all of the milk. Add a little at a time.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead BRIEFLY. Roll out dough into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut into 8 wedges and place on baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired. Bake 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove to a rack to cool.

Now I took that basic recipe and added fresh blackberries, but you can add anything you'd like [chocolate chips, cranberries, blueberries, etc.]. I was worried that blackberries were a poor choice and anticipated ending up with stained hands. Fortunately, the berries held together fairly well and the mess was minimal. Just so you know, the dough is incredibly sticky. I had "club hand" seconds into the kneading. This could be due to using too much of the milk mixture and I'll be more careful with that next time.

I've made scones before, but these are the best I've had! They're incredibly fluffy and buttery, with a very soft and tender texture. I would definitely make these again in the future and I'm sure Mom wouldn't object. She talked about the scones all day and even considered having another for dessert after we returned home from dinner. I'm so glad they turned out so well and I'm even more glad that she enjoyed them on Mother's Day.


Hopefully I'll be posting more soon. My sister is planning on having a birthday party with a couple friends and I'm planning on baking some cupcakes for the occasion. I also got sent home from school with a pile of hot chocolate mixes [thank you, Bryce!] and I want to make some Hot Chocolate cookies with those.

No comments: