Scones

A number of years ago, I was served a scone at Home Plate—a small and really excellent breakfast cafe on Lombard Street in San Francisco—that changed my entire conception of this breakfast treat. The scone was lumpy in shape, flaky on the inside, crunchy on the outside, with a distinctive cream/butter flavor, and it was utterly, addictively delicious. I needed to learn how to replicate Home Plate’s scones! I tried recipe after recipe with consistently disappointing results. And I still have not found one that replicates my memory of the Home Plate scone. If you have a chance to try their scones (which the restaurant website says they are not serving at this time), you should. But I did eventually come across a recipe published by All Recipes that, executed with some important lessons learned in the course of my very long quest for the perfect scone, yields buttery, flaky, crunchy, heavenly scones.

First, start with the right butter. For scones, you need a higher fat content, European-style butter. I use Kerrygold, unsalted. Next, unlike most baking, where you want to warm your ingredients to room temperature, it is important that the ingredients for scones be cold. I keep Kerrygold butter in the freezer, and the egg and sour cream in the fridge, until just before making the scones.

Incorporating frozen butter into the dry ingredients is the most difficult, messy and unpleasant part of making scones. Some cooks recommend using a box grater to grate the butter into the dry ingredients, then cutting in the grated butter with a pastry blender, using two knives, or rubbing the flour/butter mixture with your fingers until the butter is incorporated. I’m not a huge fan of the box grater method, because it still makes quite a mess, inevitably leaves some of the butter stuck to the box grater, and the box grater has to be cleaned. You can instead cut the butter into small (approximately 1/4-1/2”) cubes and incorporate it into the flour mixture using a pastry blender, two knives or your fingers. Or, if you have a food processor, you can do what I now do, and consider to be a scone-making game changer: Put the dry ingredients and currents into the food processor fitted with the dough attachment (sharp blades will chop the currents into oblivion), pulse a few times to combine, then add grated or cubed butter and pulse to combine. Finish by adding the egg and sour cream mixture, and pulse or mix on the dough setting. Be careful in this final stage not to overwork the dough. Mix it only until it starts to form little balls. Then take it out of the food processor, press it together, and shape it by hand.

Finally, how you cut your scones for baking greatly affects their texture. I shape my dough into a circle, about 1-1.5” thick, then cut it into 12-16 triangular pieces, rather than the 6 or 8 pieces that most recipes recommend. This makes significantly smaller scones, but you get more of the wonderfully crunchy exterior texture that you want in a scone.

Scones are best eaten the day they are baked. But, the dough freezes really well. Make the batter, cut the scones, and wrap what you don’t want to bake and eat same-day individually in wax or parchment paper, then in a plastic freezer bag, and store in the freezer until ready for use. Remove scones from the freezer about 30 minutes before baking. Prepare for baking and bake as directed below.

Leftover scones, or scones from the freezer, also make an excellent base for Strawberry Shortcake, significantly reducing the time needed to make this dessert. Just heat leftover scones briefly in the toaster oven, or bake as directed below if from the freezer, top with fresh strawberries tossed with 1-2 teaspoons of sugar (let sit for 30 minutes) and heavy cream whipped with sugar and a splash of vanilla extract, for a delicious and easy dessert.

Definitely experiment by deleting the currents and adding to this basic scone recipe other ingredients and flavors—lemon zest and poppyseed, cranberry and walnut, blueberry, orange, cherry, apricot, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. Keep in mind that adding moisture to your dough will change the texture of the scones. For that reason, I recommend using dried rather than fresh fruits.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place a rack in the lower third of the oven. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup currents

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup sour cream

1 large egg

Directions

Combine all dry ingredients together with the currents in a medium bowl or in the bowl of a food processor. Cube or grate and work in frozen butter until it forms pea-sized lumps. In a small bowl, whisk together egg and sour cream until smooth. Add egg and sour cream mixture to dry ingredients and mix by fork and hand, or in food processor, until the dough starts to come together. Especially if mixing by fork/hand method, it will seem like there is not enough liquid in the dough. Resist the urge to add more! Instead, keep working the dough until the dry ingredients are incorporated, which will happen as the butter softens. Turn out onto a cold counter top, covered with parchment paper, if you wish. Form into a 1-1.5” thick circle. Cut into 12-16 triangles and use a thin metal spatula to separate/lift and transfer pieces to the cookie sheet. Sprinkle tops of scones generously with granulated sugar. Bake 15-17 minutes. Let cool at least 5 minutes. Serve with butter, jam and/or clotted cream (can be purchased in the dairy section of the grocery store).