Heart-Attack-Inducing Scones

Captain's Log, Stardate 04.28.2011

Some of you will recognize the photo from my Facebook page yesterday. Yes, I made scones.

Many of you know how much I loooooooove English High Tea (which, as my British friends tell me, most Brits don’t really do very often at all). I adore tea and scones. And Devonshire cream and jam. My favorite High Tea restaurant is Lisa’s Tea Treasures, one at the Pruneyard and one at Santana Row. They both have the most AWESOME scones on the planet.

I have tried making scones lots of times and just could never seem to get them to taste like the Lisa’s Tea Treasures scones. Then I was reading Sandie Bricker’s novel, Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride for endorsement, and she has this amazing blueberry scones recipe that uses butter and cream. So naturally I had to make them.

I did not have blueberries, although I anticipate getting strawberries in my co-op delivery on Friday, so I will make the scones again with strawberries on Friday. :) But even without the blueberries, OH MY GOSH the scones turned out amazing! I guess it helps that the recipe has twice the butter of the other scones recipe I was using, and uses whipping cream instead of milk.

The neato pan in the picture is one I bought at Williams-Sonoma, and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. Making scones is a BREEZE with this pan because I don’t have to roll out the dough, I just smash it into the sections and then bake it. Plus the pan has a non-stick coating, so I only need a little butter in each section to make the scones slip right out. Then again, this time I used so much butter in the recipe, maybe I didn’t need the butter in the pan after all …

Regardless, I scarfed down 5 of those puppies in a couple hours with my pot of tea, which was Thé Au Chocolat made by my favorite tea store, Lupicia. I paired my scones (like the butter wasn’t enough) with apricot preserves. I was in heaven!!!!

I have GOT to find a way to put these scones in a book. I’m working on a new Love Inspired Suspense proposal. Maybe I’ll have my hero’s mother make these.

I was asked to post the recipe, so here it is, but be aware that they were a little too salty, so the next time I make them, I’ll probably reduce the salt. The recipe was cobbled together from Sandie’s recipe and a recipe from an old Time-Life book on British cooking.

Heart-Attack-Inducing Scones

2 ½ cups flour
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
2 ½ teaspoons salt (this is too much salt if you use regular salted butter; next time, I’ll either use less salt or use unsalted butter)
1 tablespoon sugar
8 tablespoons butter (yes you read that right, that’s one stick of butter)
¾ cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter the scone pan or whatever pan you’re going to use for the scones.

Combine dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse meal.

Beat the egg with a whisk until it’s frothy, then whisk in the cream. Pour over the flour mixture.

Toss together until dough forms a compact ball. The recipe has you roll it out on a lightly floured surface and cut into rounds, but I just tore off hunks of dough and stuffed them into my scones pan. They made 16 triangles perfectly, or if you cut them into rounds, they should make 12 rounds.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until light brown.

Updated 4/28/11:For those of you interested in the scone pan, you can buy it on Amazon here.