These may not look like much, but boy, were they good! My usual go-to scone recipe is one by Dorie Greenspan, namely her Cream Scones. But, cream has a lot more calories than buttermilk, and I wanted to expand my repertoire, so I dug up this recipe and fiddled with it a bit. I added lemon zest, white chocolate, and dried cherries, plus a little extra sugar. I am not a big fan of really sweet stuff (usually), but I increased the sugar because I served these with a brunch and I needed something sweeter than these scones would have been had I followed the recipe exactly.
Two tips: leave the white chocolate in big chunks or it will melt into the batter, or use white chocolate chips, which will hold their shape better. Finally, these scones rise quite a bit, so if you make 8 scones out of the recipe, as I did, they will be big. These are definitely on the repeat list!
Buttermilk Scones
Adapted from a recipe by Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger
- 3 cups unbleached flour
- 1/3 cup sugar+ 1 Tablespoon, plus extra for sprinkling
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 cup buttermilk
- zest of one lemon
- 1/2 cup dried cherries (optional)
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, or chunks (roughly chopped)
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream, for brushing
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and lemon zest in bowl of a food processor. Add butter and pulse to a coarse meal. Add buttermilk and mix just until combined. Remove batter from bowl and gently add cherries and white chocolate.
Transfer dough to a floured board. Roll to 3/4 inch thick round. Cut round into 8 wedges and place slightly separated on a greased baking sheet. Brush the tops with the cream, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Mine took about 30 minutes to brown, but I started watching them at 15 minutes. Serve warm – these are so good they didn’t need any extra butter.
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7 users responded in this post
Yum! They look wonderful. Really tempting photo. I like my scones a little on the sweet side!
Buttermilk is always my choice over cream … well except in coffee and then it’s skim milk :0) crazy I know.
Lovely color on a beauty of a scone.
I really need to get on the scone making bandwagon. The cream has always been a factor in my choosing not to make them. Maybe I’ll try these!
(I can’t believe I’m complaining about cream since joining TWD a while back, I’ve never had or used so much cream in my life!) 😉
I love baking scones, but haven’t made any in a really long time. These look and sound great!
those scones looks delicious.
Trupti
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I have missed making scones (blog name – duh!!) because I am trying to cut down on bread, etc., but these look way to good to pass up. Thanks for the recipe.
I made these last week. Really tasty!