Blueberry Scones

Last week was ridiculous.  Between two trips to the emergency room for a baby whose 104-105 fever wouldn’t break for 3 days (with medicine), and work deadlines that didn’t take notice at all of my personal schedule, I’m physically and emotionally spent.

For instance, after 2 days of a high fever, we thought we were in the clear when the baby’s temperature went down to 99.  And, after 48 hours of no sleep, we thought to take a nap at 3:00 a.m.  At 5:00 a.m., turns out the temperature went down to 94, which is bad bad bad.  Helpless is the word.  Oh, and also sleep deprived.

Spent.

As in, I want to hide under my bed covers and sleep for a month….and wake up only for these scones.

I made these scones as a way to use up my frozen blueberries, and to also have a special breakfast treat for several days during the week.  With such a short ingredient list, you’re likely to have everything on hand.  And after a week like mine, I’ll call that a win.  Add a cup of dark coffee, and I can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Blueberry Scones

barely adapted from Tyler Florence

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (if frozen, make sure its thawed and drained)
• 1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
3. Cut in the butter with a fork until the mixture look like coarse crumbs.
4. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Be careful and gentle to where you don’t break the blueberries because the color will bleed into the dough.
5. Make a well in the center and pour in the heavy cream. Fold everything together just to incorporate; do not overwork the dough.
6. Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 x 3 x 1.5 inches. Cut the rectangle in half then cut the pieces in half again, giving you 4 squares. Cut each square in half diagonally.
7. Place the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush the tops with a little heavy cream. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until beautiful and brown.

Orange and Oat Scones

I fear I’ve gotten in a breakfast rut.  I used to change it up with oatmeal, smoothies, omelettes, and pancakes.  These days, the fastest breakfast I can put together in the morning is toast and eggs.  And, last week, it officially got old.  Requiring something different, I ventured out and made scones.

Unlike brunch where scones can be sweet and almost-dessert, a weekday breakfast needs to be filling, healthy and satisfying.  These scones satisfy all three criteria and the taste is sublime.  Perfectly sweet and hearty, the scones are perfect during these cold mornings alongside a cup of my favorite tea.  I had dried apricots on hand, but you can use any dried fruit you have.

I kept them in an airtight container for the week and just toasted them every morning and the scones did not dry out for the whole week.

Orange and Oat Scones

from 101 Cookbooks
yields 8 large scones

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 cup rolled oats
• zest of 1 orange
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 tbsp coarse turbinado or Demerara sugar, for sprinkling
• 1/3 cup dried apricots, currants, cranberries, blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine the flour, 1/4 cup of turbinado sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in the bowl of a food processor.
3. Add the butter and pulse 15-20 times or until it looks like little pearls.  Transfer the dough to a bowl and stir in the oats and zest. Stir in the buttermilk and apricots until just moistened.
4. Bring the dough together with your hands. If the dough is still too crumbly, stir in more buttermilk a tiny splash at a time, but try to avoid over mixing.
5. After bringing the dough together, gently pat it into an 8-inch round. Cut into triangle shapes (see photo) and transfer to the prepared baking sheet, leaving room between each scone.
6. Sprinkle the tops with the 2 tbsp coarse sugar.
7. Bake for 12 to 15 minute or until the bottoms are deeply golden.

Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze

I haven’t had a single bowl of pumpkin oatmeal yet.  How very non-seasonal of me.

It seems like I was subconsciously saving it for these.

Those my friends are pumpkin scones.  Yes, sir.  As beautiful as they are delicious.

I’ve never been a scone fan.  Most recipes leave  you with a bready, lackluster snack, which leaves me unsatisfied.  Not this one.

Not only are these scones delicious, they are moist, flavorful and perfectly sweet to disappear sooner than I wanted to some grubby family fingers.

You can tell from the dough that this scone will come out light and almost flaky.

Oh and did I mention that they come with a spiced glaze?  (The dough itself has very little sugar so the glazes are pretty necessary in my opinion.)

But you get to decide if you just need a drizzle or a full dunk.

Obviously I prefer a dunk and a drizzle.

I’m greedy like that.

Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze
adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

Scones:
–   2 cups all-purpose flour
–  7 tbsp sugar
–  1 tbsp baking powder
–  1/2 tsp  salt
–  1/2 tsp cinnamon
–  1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
–  1/4 tsp ground cloves
–  1/4 tsp ground ginger
–  6 tbsp cold butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
–  1/2 cup pumpkin
–  3 tbsp milk (I used unsweetened almond milk and it came out just fine)
–  1 tsp vanilla extract
–  1 large egg

Initial Glaze:
–  1 cup plus 1 tbsp powdered sugar
–  1/4 tsp vanilla extract
–  2 tbsp milk  (again, I used unsweetened almond milk)

Spiced Glaze:
–  1 cup plus 3 tbsp powdered sugar
–  2 tbsp milk (unsweetened almond milk for me)
–  1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
–  1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
–  1 pinch ground ginger
–  1 pinch ground cloves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425F.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2.  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger in a bowl.  Use a fork to cut the butter into the flour mix until you get a coarse crumbly mix and you can’t really tell that there are chunks of butter in the mixture.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, milk, vanilla and egg.  Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture.  Make sure you don’t over mix.  Form the dough into a ball (the dough will be very soft).
4. Put out the dough onto a floured surface and form into a 1 inch rectangle that’s 3 times long as it is wide.
5. Then, with a knife, cut the dough twice width wise, making three equal pieces.
6. Then, cut each of the three pieces into an X making 12 pieces total.
7. Place each piece onto the baking sheet and bake for 14-16 minutes until lightly golden brown.
8. After baking, place on a wire rack to cool.
9. To make the initial glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.  After the scones have cooled, use a pastry brush to brush the initial glaze onto the scones.
10. To make the spiced glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.  Usually by this time, the initial glaze should have hardened on the scones.  Drizzle (or dunk – or both) onto each scone.  Leave for about an hour for the glaze to dry.

Serving sizes are relative.

Are you a fan of scones?  How have you used your pumpkin lately?