Blueberry Scones

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I have something so yummy and awesome for you guys today, it is making me hungry just posting about it.  Homemade Blueberry Scones! So where I'm from in Utah, a "scone" is usually fried dough with honey butter on it (so delicious) but these are true English scones and they are an awesomely flaky, buttery, soft pastry.

In this recipe I will teach you the secret of getting really flaky delicious dough.  A lot of the time homemade pie crust or homemade biscuits are dense and flat, not like the bakery at all. After following these instructions your dough will be better than the bakery and you'll be a pro!

This recipe is adapted from the best pastry cookbook ever, Tartine.  Tartine is a bakery in San Francisco and oh my gosh it's amazing. I love this book--it's got gorgeous photos and the recipes are out of this world.  If you are serious about baking at all run to Amazon to get your copy right now!

Blueberry Scones

Adapted from the wonderful Tartine cookbook

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup dried blueberries (or other berry, fresh or dried)
• 4 3/4 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, very cold
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 tsp lemon zest grated (about 1 lemon's worth)
• Melted butter (about 3 tablespoons)
• Course sugar (I used Turbinado sugar)

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 F.  If you are using dried berries, put them in a cup of warm water and set them aside to plump up while you make the dough.

2.  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.

3.  Time for the special flaky dough secret! It has two parts: cold, cold butter straight from the fridge (like don't even get it out of the fridge till you get to this step kind of cold) and this little contraption (pictured above), called a pastry cutter.  First, cut your butter into cubes (1/2"ish--no need to be precise) with a sharp knife and throw them into the flour mixture.  Now you'll start what is known as "cutting in" the butter.  Grasp your pastry cutter and push down through the butter into the flour mixture.  In doing this, you'll be cutting the butter into even smaller pieces and mixing it with the flour.  Keep doing it until you have a course mixture of flour and butter, with the biggest pieces of butter being about the size of peas.

I tried to capture what the dough will look like when you're done with the pastry cutter.  Those bigger chunks of butter are about the size of peas and the mixture is really crumbly. This is GOOD, don't try to cut it more. The reason this is the secret to flaky dough is that these little pieces of butter will melt in the baking process and leave little gaps in the dough making it flaky and delicious.

4.  After cutting in the butter, add the buttermilk (I usually don't buy buttermilk so I use the trick of adding about 1 tablespoon vinegar to the milk to make my own), lemon zest, and blueberries (drained of any water they were soaking in). Mix with a spoon just until you have a dough that holds together.

5.  Pull the dough out onto a floured surface and form the dough into a rectangle about 5 inches wide and 1 1/2 - 2 inches thick.

6.  Brush the top of the rectangle with melted butter and sprinkle with the course sugar. (So pretty!)

7.  Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into triangles.

 8.  Transfer the scones to a greased cookie sheet and bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the tops are light brown.

 YUM! These are delicious for breakfast or snack and are best right out of the oven.