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7/24/08

Dried Cherries & Orange Scones

Saturday Anna and I are going over to Cindy's house to help the girls with painting their doll house and to have tea & cookies: how very lady-like! Not wanting to show up empty-handed, Anna decided to make scones. I was telling Stacey about the scones, and she asked if she could have one before her vacation. I was more than happy to oblige; plus, it gave me an excuse to bake. Stacey, in fact, found this recipe from Epicurious, which I used as a template for my scones.


Dried Cherries & Orange Scones


Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
orange zest from one orange
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup dried cherries
1 cup chilled buttermilk

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda into large bowl. Mix in orange peel. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in dried cranberries. Gradually add buttermilk, tossing with fork until moist clumps form.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead briefly to bind dough, about 4 turns. Form dough into 1-inch-thick round.

Cut into 8 wedges.

Transfer wedges to prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Brush the scones with buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake until tops of scones are golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let stand on baking sheet 10 minutes. Serve scones warm or at room temperature.

Thoughts: this was a very simple recipe to follow. The "dough" turned out a bit wetter than I expected, so I added a bit more flour. Anna thought it could also use more sugar, but everything depends on how sweet you like your scones to be. Definitely give this one a try!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to scones! LOL I "discovered" them while on vacation earlier this year... on a cruise where each day they served "high tea". I fell in love with all different kinds of scones - usually with jam and cream ;-) They're so versatile, equally delicious in both savory and sweet varieties.

Yours look fantastic :)

Have a delicious day!!

Olga said...

Thanks, Em!
I've actually had scones before and recall even making them once. I just did not keep the recipe: but this one is definitely a keeper!

Yes, cruise and food.... :)

test it comm said...

Those scones look good! Dried cherry and orange is a great flavour combo for scones.

Jeanine - The Baking Beauties said...

Those scones look delicious! What a great flavour combo.

Kalva said...

Dear lovely one.. i was actually looking out for good scones recipe.. Can i use fresh blue berries instead??

Olga said...

Kalva,
I think you could try it with fresh blueberries, just make sure not to break them while mixing the scones. I'd also drench them in a bit of flour before adding to the dough (hopefully it will prevent them from bleeding out). Hope it helps.

Brilynn said...

I love dried cherries, these sound great!

Anonymous said...

ooh the use of dried cherries sounds really tasty. though i pretty much love any kind of scone. nice job!

Nani Khemaney said...

Hi, cool name for a cool blog..
mango & tomato :)

i love scones because i'm a lazy cook..anything that is fast easy and yummy appeals to me.

i've never tried using dried cherries.. not sure if they are available here either..

so i want to try dried cranberries..

what do you think?

thanks,

n. khemaney