Weekend Baking – Very Berry Scones

 

 

This morning, despite going to bed at 2am after a very rare late night out on the town, I woke up bright and early at 7am and decided to whip up a batch of scrumptious scones.  I can never sleep in, so decided to turn all that early morning energy into something productive.

Even during my wild party days in my early 20s, I would come home at 3am and head to a nearby 24hour Wellcome to pick up ingredients for my breakfast.  Then, I’d sleep for a few hours, and despite hangovers, make myself a full sausage / mushroom omelette complete with a side of crispy hash browns.  Food, no matter how tired I was, always took precedence.

Now, back to the scones.  This is an incredibly easy recipe that takes a matter of moments to make.  I made these little bundles of yumminess in under 30 minutes!

What you’ll need (makes 6-8):

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbls sugar
• 2.5 – 3 tbls ice cold butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup blueberries

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius.

While the oven is heating, start putting together your scone mixture.

I love vanilla sugar, and have this in my kitchen at all times.  It’s simply made by burying a few vanilla pods inside a tightly sealed jar of sugar.  After a few days, the fragrance of vanilla will perfume the entire jar!  Simply heavenly!

Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt – mix well.

This is probably the most important part to good pastry – cold butter!  I like to dice the butter up into tiny cubes, then mix these into the flour.  Keep in mind to work fast as not to let the butter melt too much.

Sprinkle the diced butter into the dry mix.

The term “pastry hands” refer to people with cold hands (ewwwwwww) since they don’t melt the butter as much when working with the dough.

This is the fun part – scrunch the butter into the flour until the entire mixture takes on a slightly moist, crumbly texture.

Once the butter has been “crumpled” into the mixture, it should look something like this (below).

Bring on the blueberries!  Fresh blueberries are amazing, but they tend to crush easily during the mixing process.  Hence, my tip would be to freeze the berries first so they hold up during the mixing process.

Crack an egg and save a bit of the egg white for brushing over the scones later.  Mix the rest of the egg with the milk and pour into the mixture.  You might need to add a bit more milk if the mixture is too dry.

This is the consistency you want – slightly sticky but mouldable.

 

Make palm size dollops of these and place them on a baking sheet.

Brush each scone with some egg white (saved from the previous egg).  This is actually a pretty crucial part since I find it helps keep the scones nice and moist.

Bake in a 200degrees celsius oven for 16-18 minutes until golden on top.

Bon Appetit!!!  Perfect, for breakfast, tea, or anytime of the day!  I love mine with a glass of cold milk.

Or delicious with a generous slathering of jam  Enjoy!