How to Bake Cranberry Orange Scones

Scones are a wonderful and versatile treat, great with breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea, or after dinner coffee. They are also very easy to make. If I can make it in my temperamental electric oven that was born in the 60’s, you can definitely make them too. Here is a version great for the holiday season, using dried cranberries. Try bringing a batch to your office, everyone will love you!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp kosher salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 TBSP butter
• 3 TBSP vegetable shortening
• ¾ cup cream
• 1 whole egg
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• 2 TBSP orange zest, chopped fine
• 1 egg white
• ¼ cup large granular sugar
• Extra flour to prevent sticking

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.
   
   In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In a smaller bowl, beat the egg and cream together.

2. 
   Flours mixture with butter and shortening

   Add the butter and vegetable shortening to the dry ingredients. Using your fingers (take any jewelry off first), cut in the butter and shortening until there are no big clumps left. The dry ingredients will look like little pills now.

3. Add the cream and egg mixture, the cranberries, and the zest to the flour mixture. Stir together until just incorporated. The mixture should be moist but firm. Flour a flat clean surface, and put the dough on it. Flatten it out to about ½ an inch thick.

4. Use a biscuit cutter (or something similar) and cut out as many circles as you can. When you can’t make any more circles, press the remaining dough together again and re-flatten so you can make more circles. Once you have used up the dough, you should have about a dozen circles. Cut them in half so you have 24 half-circles. (If you do not have a round biscuit cutter, you can use a knife to cut out triangular scones.)

5. Using a pastry brush, brush egg white onto each scone, and sprinkle with the large-granular sugar. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or one of those silicone mats. Put half the scones onto the sheet, leaving room for the scones to expand a bit. Place in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.
   
   Your scones should be sweet and flakey, and absolutely delicious.

[ElectricalNut]

on 1/19/2009 Great article - sounds good!

[4dogday]

on 12/17/2008 These sound yummy!

[Desula]

on 12/11/2008 Thanks for the scone recipe.

[acole]

on 12/10/2008 Sounds good. Thanks!