I found some great strawberries on sale at my local market, which is a rare treat for October. I usually try to eat produce in season, but these were so irresistible! I bought two pounds of berries, and I decided to use half of them for baking. I wanted to try something a little different, so I flipped through Martha's Baking book until inspiration struck me. Scones! I love scones, but I've never made them before, and I've never tried strawberry scones.
Martha's Book includes three different recipes for scones, but none of them use fresh fruit. I had a feeling there would be some major differences in the moisture content with dried vs. fresh fruit, and I wasn't sure if wanted to "wing it" by myself. Luckily, one of my favorite food bloggers, Katie at Good Things Catered, published a great recipe for fresh strawberry scones. I decided to adapt her recipe for my own scones. Thanks, Katie! And this means I can actually print my recipe, instead of worrying about copyright infringement (I hear Martha Stewart has great lawyers).Fresh Strawberry Scones
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour (plus a little extra for handling the dough)
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 Tbsp raw or sanding sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 Tbsp) butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1 egg
1/4 cup yogurt (I used plain Greek-style yogurt)
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp orange zest
1 pound fresh strawberries, diced (about 2 cups)
Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment.
-In a small bowl, combine egg, yogurt, milk, and zest. Whisk to combine thoroughly and set aside.
-In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, powder, salt, and whisk to combine.
-Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut butter into flour until all pieces are smaller than pea-sized.
-Add diced strawberries, and toss to coat.
-Add wet ingredients to dry and mix in lightly with a fork until dough just comes together.
-Turn dough out onto well floured work surface and pat into large ball. If the dough is too sticky, you can add up to 1/4 cup of extra flour, 1 Tbsp at a time. I had to add about 1/8 cup extra.
-Cut the large ball of dough in half.-Shape half of the dough into a flat disk shape and cut it into 6 slices using a sharp knife.
-Place individual scones on the baking sheet, one inch apart. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
-Sprinkle the tops of the scones with raw (sanding) sugar and place in the oven.
-Bake until scones turn slightly brown, about 25 minutes.
-Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes.
-Transfer to a wire rack and let them cool for another 10-15 minutes.
Time to eat!
These scones were delicious! I will definitely be making homemade scones again. Yum yum yum! You could adapt this recipe to use any fresh berry.
