Lemon Scones

Miss me?

I sure have! Man, have I been busy this past month, and with limited computer access to boot.

For some bizarre reason, I have become famous for these scones. Of all the things I could be famous for, it had to scones. Well, what's a girl to do? Take what fame she can and run with it, baby!

Next week we are hosting a weekend for social workers, case workers, challenged families and others regarding food availability issues for underpriviledged people, and the organizer mentioned to my supervisor that she knew someone at the recent music camps who was raving over these scones, which I had served for Sunday brunch once. I'm sure I'm going to have a request made to me for these scones at a planning meeting tomorrow. So here is what all the hubbub is about.

Lemon Scones

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup cold butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup 10% cream
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind (approximately the zest of 2 - 3 lemons)
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Glaze:
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp icing sugar

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the first 4 ingredients. Sable (see notes) in the butter with your hands quickly, until the mixture resembles something slightly chunkier than cornmeal.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, and cream. Drizzle over the dry ingredients and toss gently until the mixture clumps into a very soft sticky dough.
3. Turn out onto a very well-floured surface. With floured hands, form into a ball, kneading about 8 times. The dough will be very wet, so use lots of flour. Place on a parchment paper-lined sheet or lightly floured rimless baking sheet. Pat into a 1.5 cm thick circle and cut into 8 wedges. Do not separate.
4. Bake in 350F oven unitl golden.
5. For the glaze, combine the juice and sugar. Apply the glaze with a pastry brush just after the scones come out of the oven while they're still piping hot.

Notes.

- To sable means to rub the dry ingredients and the butter together with your hands. I don't bother with the pastry cutter or two knives crap because my hands are much more efficient, especially when I quadruple this recipe for a larger batch.
- Don't make these in a mixer for God's sake: you'll overwork the flour. The key here is mixing as little as possible and kneading as lightly as possible to get a delicate product in the end.
- Please, please, please use real lemons! That stuff that comes in the yellow lemon-shaped bottle from the store is awful! You cannot beat the real McCoy here, or anywhere for that matter. Get yourself a cheap citrus juicer and a zester and away you go.
- I make several variations of this. For instance, the lemon zest and juice is directly interchangable with orange zest and juice, and I do that a lot. Also, I often add blueberries, but while still frozen because they're easier to mix in and they'll keep their shape. Frozen raspberries would also work, or just skip the citurs altogether and add raisins and a bit of cinnamon.


Well, let me know how they turn out.

I hope to be updated this blog more often now that I have more time and more reliable internet access. I miss this a lot.