Dorie Greenspan's Cream Scones
Dorie's classic cream scones with fresh peaches
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons granulated white sugar
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter chilled & cut into small pieces
Wet Ingredients:
- 1 large egg
- 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract optional
Adds:
- 3/4-1 cup fresh fruit-peaches, nectarines, strawberries, berries larger fruit-diced and left to drain on a paper towel while making dough.
Egg wash:
- 2 tbsp heavy cream or egg wash
- turbinado or sparkling sugar
Accompaniments
- jam or preserves serving
- clotted cream substitute creme fraiche or mascarpone
Instructions
- Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment
- In a small bowl, stir the egg, cream and vanilla (if using) together.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
- Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly.
- Pour the egg, cream and currants over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be wet and sticky, come together. Don't overdo it. Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, or turn it with a rubber spatula 8 to 10 times.
- You can also use a food processor. Place dry ingredients in bowl, pulse 1-2 twice to mix. Add butter and pulse 5-6 times until mixture looks like crumbs. Add egg/cream and pulse to dough just begins to clump. Do not overmix! Take mixture out of processor bowl, fold in peaches and shape dough into circles, proceed as below.
- Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Divide it in half. Working with one piece at a time, pat the dough into a rough circle that's about 5 inches in diameter, cut it into 6 wedges and place it on the baking sheet.
- Brush scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar
- Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes (start checking at 15 min) or until their tops are golden and firm. Transfer them to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for them to cool to room temperature.
- The scones can be frozen on the baking sheet as the cut wedges, then wrapped airtight. Don't defrost before baking- just add about 2 minutes to the baking time.
- Serve with jam and clotted cream or butter
Notes
Great combinations include:
Sub dried blueberries and lemon, add 1 tsp lemon zest
Sub dried cranberries and orange add 1-2 tsp orange zest
Sub fresh fruit for currants:
blueberries, strawberries
cut fruit-partially freeze diced fruit before adding to dough
Lemon Icing
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)