Apricot-Orange Scones
from Joy of Cooking

Ingredients:

  • 2 c. flour
  • 1/3 c. sugar
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 6 tbsp. cold unsalted butter
  • 1/2 c. chopped dried apricots
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 c. heavy cream
  • 1 tsp. grated orange zest

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the largest pieces are the size of peas and the rest resemble breadcrumbs. Stir in the chopped apricots.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, cream, and orange zest, and add all at once to the dry ingredients. I find that I need to use a spatula to get every drop of moisture out of the measuring cups and bowl used for the cream or the mixture will not combine fully. Mix until the dry ingredients are just moistened, then gently knead against the sides of the bowl 5 to 10 times to pick up any drier bits (I sometimes need to add a few drops of water to get everything to combine). Transfer to a floured surface and pat the dough into a rectangle about 3/4" thick. Cut into 12 triangles and place on a baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk or cream and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (if desired; I leave out the cinnamon sugar). Bake at 425oF for 12-15 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Of course, if your oven is like mine, the bottoms will burn to a crisp before the tops go golden. I'd suggest checking the bottoms at 12 minutes.

There are many variations on this recipe - instead of apricots, other dried fruit can be used - blueberries, cranberries, cherries, raisins, currants, pears - and change the orange zest to lemon zest with the blueberries. A current favorite at our house is 1/2 c. frozen saskatoons and 1/4 c. white chocolate chips (no zest). I have tried this with raspberries as well but it needs work.

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Last modified: Tue Oct 19 23:10:39 PDT 2004