I must admit, I’ve always been sort of afraid of scones. Not like, monster under the bed afraid, but just kind of too afraid to actually try them. I think the reason is because in my life, so far, I’ve had some really amazing scones and some really sucky scones. Very rarely is a scone in the middle. I was afraid I would fall on the short branch of that tree if you know what I mean.
But I put together some kitchen courage this week and gave some currant scones a shot. Were they the best scones I’ve ever had? Heck no. But they were pretty darn good.
I think I have conquered my fear.
An army of scones.
I’ll be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to make these scones is because I have about two pounds of currants left over from this deal.
I mean why does a store only sell these small little jewels in the jumbo variety? What am I going to do with all of these?!
The star of the show.
Enough complaining though. I wanted to use some of them and the scones were a perfect opportunity.
Currant Scones (adapted from Gourmet July 2009)
Makes 16-20 scones- 3.5 Cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 Cups sugar
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 3/4 sticks cold unsalted butter
- 3/4 Cups milk
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1 Cup dried currants
Making the batter. Pulling this batter together is pretty easy actually. Just whisk together your flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.
Then cut up your butter into pieces. And let’s face it, while the currants are good, the butter is where it is at for a good scone. There are some purists out there that will say that you need lard to make a fantastic scone and I’m not sure I can disagree with that, but I didn’t have any lard around so I used the butter and it worked great.
Ok. The real star of the show.
Once your butter is cubed you need to work it into the flour mixture like you would a pie crust. You could use a mixer for this but I prefer my hands or a dough tool for cutting in butter. If you just use your fingers though, you can get a good final result. You want tiny balls of butter mixed throughout the flour mixture. Balls a bit smaller than a pea.
Then mix your milk and eggs together separately and add those to the party. It will be a really thick, sticky batter.
It should almost be like cookie batter.
I made my scones kind of free form and I like them like that. I dropped mine using about 1/4 Cup for each scone. It was approximated though which is fine. Your scones will not all be the same size. It’s cool. You should end up with 16-20 scones on your ungreased baking sheet.
A spoonful of scone...
Pop these in the oven at 375 for about 15 – 17 minutes. Mine were perfect at 16 minutes. Watch them closely near the end. You don’t want to burn the bottoms. They should be lightly tan on top and golden brown on the bottom. They cook surprisingly fast.
Be careful with these guys.
Cool them on a wire rack for a few minutes before biting into them. They are the best the day of and I think the deteriorate pretty quickly after that. I had one on day two and it wasn’t even close to as good as the first day (although still pretty decent).
This was the interior of one of these guys.
Nice.
I think I was able to conquer my fear of scones with this recipe. It was pretty simple and only took about 40 minutes start to finish. I actually made this batch before work one day and brought in fresh, warm scones for my coworkers.
The consensus was that these were very tasty.
Your scones look terrific!
I have tried many scone recipes and the ones I like best contain heavy cream instead of milk. They are a delightfully decadent treat! (BTW Wrapping the scones in a linen napkin to cool will keep them from developing a crust.)
Were they crumbly and dry? Because whenever I have had scones that has been the texture and I just don’t like it. But perhaps that is what’s intended? Or maybe the ones I’ve had were all stale?
These look great! Looking at your currants reminded me of the Garibaldi biscuits we used to eat as kids in the UK – we used to call them “squashed flies”…sorry about that, a bit offputting. But you could make those??? Wikipedia says they were invented when General Garibaldi sat on an Eccles cake. Eccles cakes are nice too.
I’m glad I’m not the only one whose afraid of scones. The one and only scone recipe I’d tried turned out tasting like baking powder. They were aweful. I keep looking at recipes and wanting to try them but… I’m glad yours turned out well! You give me hope!!
I get scared with the mixing part of scones.. flour pockets everywhere! The best scones I made were cream scones, the texture was amazing. Too bad one serving had an insane amount of saturated fat!
Thanks for the comments and tips everyone. @Andrew… I didn’t think they were crumbly or dry at all. On day two they started to take on that texture a bit and I’m assuming by day 3 or 4 they would have been there.
@Steph I didn’t think the batter was very difficult to mix at all. Mine came together pretty easily.
Substituting cream sounds like a good idea to me also. Never get a complaint out of me to substitute cream!
the texture inside looks right
but the shape is not typically ‘scone-ish’
if i were on the Council For Correct Scone Shapes, i’d have to fine you. probably throw you in prison too.
that said – please put extra butter on mine.
Left over ingredients can be very annoying. I have a box of golden raisins that I need to use. Glad you found something to make the currants with. Sometimes I think its worth it to just buy exactly what you need from those bulk bins at Whole Foods or YES! Organics.