I'm not sure what's happening but I'm going through a real cranberry-orange phase, and this time it's taken the form of cranberry orange scones.
Kare and I went to an early morning yoga class last week followed by coffee and baked goods at the coffee shop below the studio. My usual order would be a plain croissant with my black coffee, but their homemade scones looked too good. I got the white chocolate, lemon raspberry one and was in awe of its warm, pillowy, buttery goodness.
I kept thinking about it for days afterwards, so when I saw fresh cranberries at the Root Cellar I picked up a bag and decided to try my hand at baking scones. I'm clearly a scone novice so this is adapted from the original recipe here that I found on Pinterest. But trust me when I say: you can bake scones. The only issue is that now you will always want to bake scones.
👆🏼"scones" word count: 6. Can you tell I have a new obsession?
Scones:
2 cups all purpose flour, loosely filled
½ cup granulated sugar
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Zest of 1 large orange, save the orange for juice
½ cup unsalted butter, chilled or frozen
½ cup + 1 tbsp whipping cream
1 large egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 heaping cup fresh cranberries
1-2 tbsp coarse sugar
Optional: Dark Chocolate Chips
Orange Glaze:
Juice of large orange
1 cup icing sugar
Recipe:
Add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest to a large bowl and whisk to combine. Using a box grater, grate the chilled or frozen butter into the flour mixture.
Use a pastry cutter, two forks, or your hands to gently work the butter into the flour until it resembles a very crumbly mix with pea-sized butter crumbs. Place in the fridge or freezer as you mix the wet ingredients together.
Whisk the ½ cup of cream, egg, and vanilla together in a small bowl, then add to the flour mixture with the cranberries. Combine using a wooden spoon. This will be a slightly crumbly mixture. As long as everything appears moistened but not too wet or dry, you should be good. Use your hands to gently work the dough into a ball as best you can, without overworking it.
Place a long sheet of parchment on your countertop. Place dough onto parchment and use your hands to gently shape it into an 8” disc. If this is your first time making scones and you are questioning whether the dough is going to hold together, you’ve done this correctly. If you are using chocolate chips, you can press a few into the tops of the dough or half the dough like I did.
Use a sharp knife or pastry cutter to cut into 8 wedges. Gently transfer the entire parchment paper and dough onto a baking sheet and place into the fridge to chill for 15 mins.
Preheat your oven to 400°F. After 15 minutes of chill time, remove your scones from the fridge and spread them apart about 1-2” on the pan.
Brush the tops of them with the remaining 1 tbsp of cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for 22-25 minutes until lightly golden brown on tops and edges. Remove from the oven and gently slide a cooling rack under the parchment to lift the scones off the pan.
Mix the orange juice and icing sugar to make the glaze while the scones cool. Drizzle scones with glaze and enjoy!
