Scones!

So today I made two types of scones for tea at Karen’s house! I made some cranberry scones that I got from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (my favorite food blog!). I also altered that recipe to make a batch of savory bacon and cheddar scones, which turned out quite well.  The cranberry ones were directly pulled from the link above, so I will just write down what I did for the bacon and cheddar ones!

Bacon and Cheddar Scones

Ingredients (makes about 8 large scones)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 4-6 slices of bacon, depending on the thickness
• 1/2 cup scallions, sliced very thinly
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, black pepper, cheddar and scallions together.  I decided to try a “stout cheddar”, which is basically aged cheddar with some stout beer in it. Cook the bacon in a pan  and then crumble into little bits.  Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or your fingers. The mixture should get a cornmeal-like texture once the butter is mostly cut in.  Add the bacon, mix, and then mix in the heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork.  Mix until it starts to be dough-like and a bit sticky, then put it on a lightly floured surface and pat it out into a circular shape about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut it like a pizza, and you’ll get 8 triangular scones! Stick in the oven for about 15 minutes.

The results: quite tasty! I love plain savory scones for breakfast. The cranberry ones definitely go well with clotted cream and some jam.  I think the savory scones ended up a bit salty, which I suspect is due to the cheese I picked. So if you’re trying a batch yourself, try adjusting the amt of cheese to account for how intense the cheese is.