Glazed Lemon-Blueberry Cream Scones (Eggless)

Every time I go to a bakery, cafe or a coffee shop I always end up getting something chocolate to munch along with my cuppa chai. If I got a second pick I would go for scones. This one time I decided to skip the chocolate (blashpemy! :O) and picked up the scones. It was definitely not chocolate, but it took me to another planet of bliss! Ever since then I have been looking for an opportunity to make them at home.

The Opportunity:At work, my husband is part of a "Breakfast Club" where team members take turns bringing breakfast on Fridays, and it was his turn this one week. So, this recurring event, is a perfect opportunity for me to try making some new type of breakfast items. I will share some of those other recipes later. Also, for Cafe Casa, we had to come up with a side eat to go with our beverage. So, everything had lined up perfectly for making scones. On hind sight, the breakfast club was unnecessary, I could have easily polished off the entire batch of scones without any help ;)

I made the traditional English scones, which are less sweeter than the American variety. The english variety is usually had with toppings such as jam/jelly to add sweetness. The American variety on the the other hand, is eaten as is, and the sweetness is hence baked in.

Recipe source: Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:
For Scones:
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
3 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 Tsp Salt
5 Tbsp Cold, Unsalted Butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup Blueberries, Fresh (I used a frozen variety for the first batch and it was a disaster! not the taste, but the appearance of it! They looked like Smurf scones!!! I recommend buying fresh blueberries if you can)
1 Cup Heavy Cream, Cold
1 Tsp Lemon Zest

For Glaze:(Optional)
1 Tbsp Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Sugar

• Preheat the over to 425 F/ 218- 220 C
• In a large mixing bowl whisk the flour, baking powder,sugar and salt. Else, process in your food processor with quick pulses.
• Add the lemon zest
• If making by hand, use 2 knives, a pastry blender, or your finger tips, and quickly cut in the butter till the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few skightly larger lumps.If using a food processor , distribute the butter evenly over the dry ingredients and process with twelve 1-second pulses.
• Add the blueberries and quickly, but gently, mix in.
• Stir in heavy cream with rubber spatula or fork until the dough begins to form, this takes about 30 secons- 1 minute
• Place the dough on a floured surface and very gently knead it, until it comes together into a rough and slightly sticky ball.

Remember, all the steps above once the mixing starts, needs to be done very quickly and moved to the cake pan for baking in a relatively cold state to avoid the scones ending up being hard and flat. Another alternative is to make the dough and quickly transferred to the refrigerator for 1-2 hrs before baking.

• Press the dough into a 8-inch cake pan, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.
• With a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges.
• Place the wedges on an un-greased baking sheet.
• Brush the tops of the scones with heavy cream and sprinkling them with sugar just before baking them.
• Bake until the scone tips are light brown - some 12 to 15 minutes.

• Cool on a cooling rack for atleast 10 minutes, then watch them vanish in record time!