Translate

Friday, September 6, 2013

Scones ~ Nectarine & Blueberry versions

Uhm, this might be a long post as I went scones crazy and baked up about four different kinds of scones. 1. A simple scones recipe using an egg and sour cream. 2 Nectarine scones. 3. Blueberry scones. 4 Nectarine and Blueberry scones. :D Did I mention scones-crazy!? The fruit scones were adapted from previously made Apple Scones recipe.

First off, the scones recipe with an egg and sour cream. 
The ingredients needed are:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg

Step 1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400°F.
2. In a mixer bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

3. Grate butter into flour mixture on the large holes of a box grater. (Mixture should resemble coarse meal). Personally, I find just chucking the whole piece of butter to work just fine as long as it all gets incorporated.
4. Then add in the sour cream and egg then beat until smooth. Every now and again, stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are mixed to form a dough. Once dough forms, switch beater paddle to dough hook and let it knead for a few minutes.
5. Place on a lightly floured surface and pat into a 7- to 8-inch circle about 3/4-inch thick. 

6. Use a sharp knife to quarter the dough. Then cut each quarter into three pieces. Place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper), about 1 inch apart. 
7. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. 

These tasted like a sweet cake-y biscuit. Definitely different from the first and second scones I've made. Still, it had a light crunch on the outside and soft inside, which is always favorable for a biscuit and I guess scones. I preferred buttering these over jams/preserves for this particular scones recipe. 

2. Nectarine Scones!

Ingredients Needed:
2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup white sugar, 2 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 cup chilled butter, 2 nectarines - peeled and cubed (roughly 1.5 cups ~ my nectarines were huge), 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 cup milk + extra if needed

Directions:
Step 1. In a mixer, add all the dry ingredients and mix briefly.
2. Then chuck in the butter and let it get beat into the dry ingredients.
3. Then add the nectarines. (Note, the picture shows them shredded, but I say cube'em in the ingredients list. This is because the shredded version didn't give off that much nectarine flavor. Thinking cubed will give off better flavor when bitten into).
4. Then mix in the cinnamon.
5. And lastly, add the 1/4 cup milk. If it's too dry, I added in more milk a tablespoon at a time. Just be sure to give it time to mix everything in before adding in more milk.

6. Once dough is formed, switch to break hook and let machine need dough for 30-40 seconds and then turn dough onto a generously floured surface. If your dough is too sticky, you can knead in some flour, folding dough in half on top of itself each time.
7. Divide dough into three 5 in dome pieces. Take two of the pieces and quarter each for a total yield of 8.
8. Set aside the third dome piece for later (to be mixed with a blueberry piece) and bake the rest in preheated oven of 425°F for 15 minutes.

3. Blueberry Scones!!
Using the recipe for the Nectarine scones above, just substitute the cubed nectarines for 1 cup of frozen blueberries. Also, I omitted the cinnamon.

The dough came out purple!

Again, divide dough into three 5 in dome pieces. Take two of the pieces and quarter each for a total yield of 8.
Then, set aside the third dome piece for later (to be mixed with a nectarine piece) and bake the rest in preheated oven of 425°F for 15 minutes.

4. Nectarine and Blueberry Scones
The easiest part. Take the two domes that were set aside (1 nectarine and 1 blueberry) and knead them together, folding in half on top of each other each time until they are mixed. 
Then, divide dough into two 5 inch dome pieces. Quarter each dome for a yield of 8. And bake in preheated oven of 425°F for 15 minutes.

Top row: Nectarine scones
Middle row: Blueberry scones (the best smelling ones)
Front, lowest row: Nectarine and blueberry scones

Once we compared these fruit scones to the first scones in this blog post, we thought the fruity ones were better both taste and texture wise. These fruity ones just made the first scones more cake like. I like to eat the fruity scones with almost anything from apricot jam to cookie butter to even a tangy greek yogurt. Super delicious! Now we have more than enough for a week or two :D The blueberry ones are our favs, but we think the apple scones still top them all. Chomp chomp.


No comments: