Blueberry Buttermilk Scones

It’s always good to try things outside of your comfort zone, right? Or switch up your routine and challenge yourself? If you haven’t noticed, dear readers, I like to bake cookies and muffins, and make soup… I like to bake and cook other food too, of course, but if we’re talking about leaving my comfort zone, that brings us to scones.

I think scones have a bad rep in my mind because of a few bad ones I’ve had over the years. Sometimes scones can be too dry or flavourless. When I decided to take on the challenge of scones, therefore, I made sure to pick ones packed with flavour. Luckily, these scones also turned out to be soft and light, and not dry.

I’ve used Martha Stewart’s recipe for blueberry buttermilk scones but I made my own addition of lemon zest. I love the combination of lemon and blueberry – tart and sweet. I made mini scones, which are the perfect size to have with a cup of tea. If you don’t have a daily teatime scheduled in your life, now is definitely the time to start. I recently rediscovered George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea” which I highly recommend reading. Orwell provides instructions on how to make the perfect cup of tea – and I agree with his point that tea should be drunk without sugar. 

As you may have guessed, dear readers, when you read about Red Velvet Cupcakes, it was recently my birthday. Jo gave me the perfect birthday present from my favourite store: Milk Bottle Measuring Cups  from Anthropologie. They stack to form an adorable milk bottle – and when you take them apart to use as measuring cups, each one is a different colour on the inside. I obviously had a lot of fun taking pictures with my new measuring cups while I made these scones!

The Recipe:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour, (not self-rising)

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (4 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup (1/2 pint) blueberries

1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk

1 large egg, plus 1 large egg lightly beaten for egg wash

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Zest of one lemon

Fine sugar, for sprinkling

The texture of the flour and sugar, etc mixed with the butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Since I made mini scones and worried they may burn on the tops before baking through at the temperature the original recipe called for, I reduced my oven to 365 degrees.

2. Whisk together flours, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers, until mixture has the texture of coarse meal. It is important that you use cold butter rather than room temperature butter as this will help prevent the scones from spreading too much while baking. Stir in blueberries.

3. Whisk together buttermilk, 1 egg, the lemon zest, and the vanilla. Drizzle over flour mixture, and stir lightly with a fork until dough comes together but a small amount of flour remains in bowl.

4. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface, and gently knead dough once or twice just to incorporate flour.

5. Create a 1-inch thick rectangle which should be about 12” x 6”. Cut into strips, and then cut each strip into small triangles.

Cut the dough into strips and then triangles

6. Transfer to parchment paper lined baking sheet. You definitely want to make sure you line your trays, because the blueberries will bleed a bit as they bake – and that wouldn’t be fun to clean off your tray after!

7. Brush scones with egg wash (the lightly beaten egg), and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

8. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 18-20 minutes. Transfer scones to wire racks to cool. Makes about 30 mini scones, or 12 regular sized scones.

Baking scones may not have been the most daring new endeavour I could have taken on – but I’m quite pleased with the results. And you will be too, I promise!

Happy Eating!

Caroline

The measuring cups stack to make a Milk Jug!