It can rhyme with "gone": Scone

I can only speak for myself, but I love a good scone.  I like their relatively dense but still flaky texture; it really sets them apart from other pastries.  I love them so much that I keep collecting recipes for them, even though I absolutely love the first recipe I ever made.  That's the recipe I'll be sharing today, because I haven't yet gone wrong with it.  I found it in one of those junior league cookbooks they compile for charity.  I've changed what gets added to these scones, but they're delicious with any number of add-ins.  I make them whenever I have cream that needs to be used up, and just knead in whatever I have on hand.  This time it was dried mangos and chocolate chips.  

Mango-Chocolate Chip Scones

2 C flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

6 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces

2 eggs

1/2 C cream

1/4 C chopped dried mango, soaked in rum

1/4 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425˚F.

Combine dry ingredients, and cut in butter (using either a pastry blender, your fingers, or a knife and fork) until the mixture resembles course crumbs.  In previous blogs, I've talked about how unhelpful I find this description.  What you want is a mixture that is NOT evenly mixed.  You don't want tons of huge clumps of butter, but you don't want it totally mixed in.  That's your flakey, buttery goodness.  

In a smaller bowl, beat the eggs and combine them with the cream, raisins, and chocolate chips.  Add this to the dry ingredients and stir just until a single ball of dough forms.  Dump onto a floured surface and knead 1 minute.  Shape into a round, about 1/8 inch thick, and then cut into 8 wedges.  (I use a pizza cutter.)

Place on a lightly grease or parchment-covered baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, until golden-brown.  

Seriously, I love this recipe.  It's delicious.  These scones go well with tea or a glass of milk, making them a wonderful snack or breakfast treat.  They freeze well, so you can make up a batch right before you go on vacation, using up the cream that won't last until you get back, and not have to worry about whether they'll be ok when you get back.

As for add-ins: the original recipe used raisins in orange liqueur, but I'm not a big fan of baked raisins.  I've used them, though, as well as cranberries, chocolate chips on their own, and once dried blueberries!  Oh, yum.  But the add-in is where you get to make the scones your own, so have fun, use what you like.