Hi there! Sorry I’m late–I blame the babies, as usual :D. Don’t worry, though, I have a good recipe for you. Scones are very tasty, and Sean requested them especially last week. Fortunately, they weren’t hard to adapt. I’ve made two versions thus far; the orange zest version, which made a great base for a strawberry-kiwi “shortcake” type dessert (pictured below) and the traditional English Currant scone, which is a great breakfast or treat all on its own when hot (mmmmm, buttery yum!) and delicious with jam when cold. I don’t have a picture of the currant scone for you at the moment, but that is not so important :D. You see, I would have had a picture, but they were eaten up too quickly!

Oh, currants are a special type of raisin  they’re smaller and sweeter. They aren’t that hard to find; I get them from the bulk bins at Whole Foods, but I’ve seen them packaged on the shelf with the other dried fruits at some standard grocery stores, too. You can substitute raisins  but they don’t work quite as well. It’s better than nothing, though! I also see no reason why dried cranberries or blueberries couldn’t be substituted to make those flavors, and intend to try it myself sometime soon!

Orange or Currant Scones

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 TBS Truvia
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cold butter
• 1-2 TBS freshly grated orange zest OR 1/3 cup currants
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• some softened butter, for spreading between layers

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, Truvia, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.

2. Cut in the cold butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs (just like making biscuits).

3. Mix in the zest or currants at this point, until evenly distributed.

4. Add the milk and egg and mix thoroughly.

5. Plop the dough out onto a floured counter and dust a small amount of flour on top (so your hands don’t stick). Knead very briefly, no more than a minute, probably less. This is just to finalize the combining, you don’t want to work in much more flour or they’ll be heavy. The dough should be very soft but well-combined.

6. Roll out the dough to 1/4″ thickness and cut it into triangles. I usually do this by rolling it out into a square or rectangle, cutting squares (usually 8), then cutting each square diagonally to get triangles.

7.  Stack the triangles by two, buttering between the two layers with the softened butter. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 12 minutes, or until lightly browned. Enjoy warm or cooled!