Thursday, October 13, 2011

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!


9 comments:

  1. It's tea time here, now. I even have my 'adrak-wala chai' right next to me on my desk. But, I am not happy. No more explanations needed :(

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  2. Do they allow new 'eating-only' members to the Breakfast Club?:P

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  3. I do not trust myself to make pastry dough for the simple reason that i go a bit hard rather than nimble deft strokes.
    These scone look super good and I am sure that your husband came back with compliments:)

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  4. @dee:I am not very happy either. I made 2 batches and I had (almost) none!
    @Lataji- You must try it out. Try following the method I have mentioned here. I the recipe from america's test kitchen labs... It worked beautifully.

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  5. first time here and love the name of your blog...

    scones looks absolutely inviting..

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  6. @Kadhyaa- Thank you so much. You should try it out... these were not too difficult to make :)

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  7. Mittu!

    I just got to see your blog... and I must say - it's amazing!

    I can't wait to try the scones.... are the photographs yours too? The scones look so good!!!

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  8. mittu, the above unknown comment was me, meghana karthik. I have no clue why it says UNKNOWN!

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  9. @meghna- Thank you so much! And yes I took the pics :)

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