Introduction: Cream Scones With Blueberries and Lemon

About: I helped start Instructables, previously worked in biotech and academic research labs, and have a degree in biology from MIT. Currently head of Product helping young startups at Alchemist Accelerator, previous…

Cream scones are simply the best, period. Just add your favorite dried fruit and citrus zest.

Step 1: Combine Dry Ingredients

Dry Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/.2 teaspoon salt

Options
~1/3 cup dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, cherries, raisins, currants, candied ginger, etc)
~1 Tablespoon citrus zest (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, etc)

Mix all the dry ingredients together, including the fruit and zest. You should see plenty of colorful zest sprinkled throughout the mix, and a generous amount of fruit. (Think roughly the ratio of chocolate chips in cookies.)

Step 2: Add Heavy Cream

Heavy cream is defined in the US as 36% fat, so select an appropriate equivalent if you live elsewhere.

Add 1 1/4 cups heavy cream to your dry ingredients, and stir everything together with a fork. This will make a rather moist biscuit-like dough. You don't need to make it completely homogeneous; just get all the pockets of dry ingredients worked in.

I find it best to add the cream a bit at a time, stirring between.

The pictures below show a triple batch. Yes, I'm pouring heavy cream directly from the container- once you've made these a few times you'll know when you reach the proper liquid ratio.

Step 3: Knead and Press Out

Give the dough a final knead in the bowl with your hands. Nothing major- just a bit of final handling to compress it into a ball.

Flip the dough out onto an ungreased cookie sheet and press it into a circle or square about 1/2-3/4 inch thick. This isn't rocket science- just make a nice evenly thick pancake. It will be crumbly and a bit uneven, but that's the joy of scones.

In case you haven't noticed, the dough is really good. Take this opportunity to try some if you haven't already. Hey, that's enough- you've got to have some left to cook too!

Step 4: Cut and Space

Cut your scone patty into serving size pieces, and pull them apart to allow for expansion during cooking.

If you made a circle, cut pie-wedge slices and simply pull them radially outward. If you made a square, cut 9 or 16 squares and space them out from the center point. There should be about an inch between pieces to ensure adequate room to spread.

In this case I'm cooking two batches each 1.5x the normal recipe, so chose to make a square. When baking a standard-size recipe I choose to make a more traditional circle for pie-wedge shaped scones.

Step 5: Topping

Now we'll use some of the leftover heavy cream and a bit of sugar to make a light topping for the scones.

Dip your finger (or a pastry brush) in the cream and moisten the entire top of each scone, then sprinkle sugar onto the wet surface. Repeat on all the scones.

Step 6: Bake

Bake at 350F until the tops are just beginning to turn golden brown around the edges. (This should be around 15 minutes, give or take 5 due to the size of your scones and oven variation.)

Yank them out of the oven, and let them cool on the pan or transfer to a rack if they're in danger of overcooking.

Step 7: Serve

When your scones have cooled slightly, pile them in a large bowl or dish and serve with the beverage of your choice.

They're of course great with tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, but are also a fine dessert or party finger food. They never last long, but in the unlikely event that you make too many they will store well.

Though these scones are extremely rich they feel light and fluffy, so beware- it's quite possible to eat way too many of them. If you accidentally eat the whole batch yourself, take a bike ride or try aquaskipping.