Adventures in Scone Making

The other day Layne was trying to watch the first BYU football game of the season and I was desperately trying to get him to change the channel. I am not typically the kind of wife that won't watch sports with her husband, but it's not cold enough for football yet! I'm just not ready to give in to fall. In any case, I quickly lost the battle, and decided to pick up one of our cookbooks. I went with "Taste" by Neiman Marcus, marking recipes as I flipped through. Fortunately, there was a lightning delay at the game and before long we were back into the Breaking Bad marathon that has been rocking our Labor Day weekend. But not before I caught the cooking bug.

Layne and I really do love cooking, but the layout of our apartment along with the amazingly antiquated and insufficient swamp cooler system has left the kitchen absolutely broiling all summer. It has been a while since we've been in there in any official capacity. But flipping through "Taste" reinvigorated me. And while, yes, I did have to stop several times to go stand in front of the cool air in the living room, I think the final product was well worth it!

I am the baker and Layne is the chef, so I decided my first adventure would be to bake something. I've been wanting to try making scones for a while now, and thought now was as good a time as any! I found this recipe by Tyler Florence for blueberry scones with a lemon glaze.

Here are my thoughts on making this recipe. After cutting in the cold butter, it wasn't quite as crumbled as I expected. I had thought to see the peas you usually get when making a dough. It probably would have been ok to add more butter actually, because they came out flaky (which I like in a scone), but maybe just a tad dry (though the glaze helped a lot with that).

 

The recipe cautions against over mixing, and I was instantly certain that I would be guilty of that and the scones would be ruined and we would be having cold cereal in no time. I mixed til my dough was just barely holding together, which made the cutting and transferring to the cookie sheet far more difficult than it needed to be. Don't be afraid to have your dough hold! 

Here's the dough, laid out and cut and you can see how lose it was. I had to keep pressing the blueberries back in to their doughy confines, as they rolled their escape. After popping the cut scones into the oven, it was on to the glaze!

The glaze came together very quickly. Lemon is one of my favorite flavors, so I've pulled together a list of quick tips for how to get the most from your citrus. 

After cooling the scones for a few minutes, I brushed the glaze on and enjoyed! They're very filling, but I still ate two in the first 10 minutes because they were SO GOOD. Eat warm to enjoy most. Happy Eating!