The Very Best Strawberry Scones

I started making a scone recipe thinking a scone recipe couldn’t be too hard. I make a great cake, a great muffin and a TON of cookies that are great. So how hard could scones be?? Turns out I was wrong. Scones were harder to crack than I thought. And millions of recipes out there all do something different to make a scone. Doesn’t it seem like a scone is a scone?

Then I started cooking scones. A scone is not a scone. The first few batches tasted good, but boy were they ugly. And they could not replicate easily. So I kept going.

Turns out freezing butter is a big trend in the scone world. Do you know how hard it is to work with frozen butter?? And it does not stay frozen very long once you start working with it. It seemed to me that the idea of baking from cold - with cold butter - was the critical part of keeping things flaky and tender. Frozen, whipped, chilled, room temp, melted; I tried them all.

And then I arrived here! Cold butter is critical and then refrigerating the dough keeps the scones from spreading and losing their shape.

Since strawberries are just coming into season right now, this is the first fruit I tried with them. Over the summer I’m going to work on raspberries, blueberries, etc. and we’ll see if we can make these an ‘every fruit’ scone - which is the goal!

makes 8

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup grated butter (very cold)

1/2 cup chopped strawberries

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 egg yolk, beaten

turbinado sugar

STEP 1

Mix together the milk, egg and vanilla and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl, combine together the flour, sugar and baking powder.

STEP 2

Blend the milk mixture into the flour mixture until loosely combined. Remove the bowl from the stand and add the butter. With your hands, fold the butter in by kneading the dough until the flour and butter are completely integrated. Use as few kneads as possible. Don’t overwork the dough!

STEP 3

Toss together the strawberries with the cornstarch. Fold them into the dough with three or four turns. Form into a 10 inch circle on a floured cutting board and pop in the fridge. Let it chill for at least one hour or up to overnight.

STEP 4

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove the scones from the fridge and cut into eight triangles. Brush the top of each one with egg yolk and sprinkle with the turbinado sugar. Bake 20 minutes until golden brown on the edges. Let cool slightly before serving.