Cranberry scones
Posted in Featured Articles, fruits, scones, snacks, Vegetarian, Western
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RECIPE FOR CRANBERRY SCONES
Source: Recipe adapted and modified from Farmgirl’s Cranberry Christmas Scones) and technique adapted from House of Annie (originated from Fine Cooking Magazine).
Yields: 26 small scones (if you use 3cm cookie cutters)
Ingredients:
2¼ cups plain flour (note: 1 cup = 115 gram)
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup castor sugar
½ tsp salt
½ cup (110g) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes (1cm)
2 tbsp plain yogurt + ½ egg (about 30g) + milk –> make up to 2/3 cup yogurt mixture
1 cup dried cranberries – rinse, put into a zip lock bag, soak with 3 tbsp of water and keep in a fridge for at least 1 hour, then squeeze away the excess water and pat dry with kitchen towelEgg glaze:
½ egg + 1 tbsp milk – beat well with a forkMethods:
A) Mixing of ingredients
- Preheat oven to 190ºC. Line a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
- Combine plain flour, baking powder and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Then sieve 2-3 times (see Note 1)
- Add in sugar and salt, and mix well.
- Using a pastry blender, fork or finger tips, cut butter into the flour mixture until it forms coarse crumbs. (see Note 2)
- Add in dried cranberries and toss gently until well combined.
- Using a fork or hand whisk, beat yogurt, milk and egg until well combined. Then gently fold yoghurt mixture into the dry ingredients and mix lightly until well blended. Do not pour all the mixture into the dry ingredients in one go. Add in little by little and stop once a loose dough is formed. You need not use up all the yogurt mixture. At this stage, the dough will be wet and sticky but manageable. Add additional flour if dough is too sticky to handle.
B) Shaping the dough
- Sprinkle flour lightly on both the dough and the work top. Turn the dough out and roughly work it into a ball. Press the ball down into a rectangular shape. Sprinkle some flour if the dough is still wet.
- Fold the dough like the way you fold a business envelope (divide dough into 3 sections, 1st fold upper third to center, then fold lower third to center). It is alright if the dough is still quite shaggy and loose at this stage. Do NOT knead or over-work the dough. The less you work on the dough the more tender and flakier the scone will be.
- Then press the dough down to form either a circle or rectangular dough.
- For circle dough, cut it into 8 large or 16 small wedges.
- For rectangular dough, cut it into 13 large or 26 small squares. Push the edges roughly to shape it into a round scone.
- Alternatively, use cookie cutter or an upside-down juice glass to cut out the scones.
- Brush tops and sides of the scones with the egg glaze. Place them on the baking tray, spacing them about 4cm apart.
- Bake in the preheat oven (at 190ºC) for 15 – 18 minutes (depending on the shape and size of your scones), or until golden brown.
- Cool on a wire rack and serve warm. Alternatively, let it cool completely and store in an airtight container or freeze (refer note 5).
Note:
- Sieve flour mixture 2-3 times to avoid any bitter taste due to the large amount of baking powder and baking soda used in this recipe.
- Using a pastry blender to cut the butter can help to prevent melting the butter before the mixing process.
- The quality of butter used is important so as to give your scones a more buttery flavour. It is worthwhile to invest in a premium brand of butter when making your scones. It would definitely make a difference in the taste.
- For frozen scones, defrost them at room temperature and heat at 180 ºC for 5-7 minutes.
- How to eat scones? Cut the scones into half and spread butter/ cream/ jam onto it. And, it is best enjoyed with a cup of coffee or tea.
The scones look perfect!
Maria: Tks for dropping by and your compliments. I loves all the Christmas cookies you made. They look fabulous! 😉
Yours look scrumptious! Adding cranberries definitely make a normal teatime treat like scones a festive delicacy, LOL!
YES, I’m so going to make scones. Thanks for sharing. =)
Pei-Lin: Tks! Looking forward to your scone posting soon. 😉
I have never baked scones before. It would be a great take on for me… 🙂
Lee Mei (MCH): I guess you must be able to find a lot of great scones in London as compared to me. Right?
Let’s have a English tea party 🙂
Tigerfish: Oh yeah! You prepare the tea and I will make these scones. What do you think? LOL! 😉
oh these scones look amazing! since im such a big fan of afternoon teas i should really get into the kitchen and learn how to make my own scones (more cost effective!) lol!
Lingzie: Not only the savings, you can easily make a better one as compared to those in the bakery shops. That’s my personal experience. 😉
This is definitely a good choice for this coming Christmas! So mouth-watering! But it is quite hard to find Cranberries in Malaysia, moreover it is also pricey! 😀
Alice: Do give it a try if you can find the dried cranberries. Otherwise, just subsitute it with raisins. 😉
LOVE THE PICTURE THERE!
looking awesomely fluffy.
i love scones and cranberries.
wonderful combination 🙂
Felicia: Glad that you like it. Easy-peasy job for you. Do give it a try, alright?
Christmas is around the corner, and I too couldn’t get my butts off the chair to bake anything because of the ridiculous weather here, where it’s amazingly sunny one second and raining heavily the next. I love freshly oven baked scones. Cranberry sounds like a great idea for the upcoming festive! You always make the simplest things look the best at the right time 🙂 I love all the photos. All of them.
Tracie Moo: Tks! As a lazy person, I love simple recipe. It saves my days! LOL!
They look so perfect! How I wish to sink my teeth into one right now =D
Noobcook: Speaking about it, I also wish to sink my teeth into your delicious Christmas cookies right now. 😉
Beautiful! I like soft and fluffy scones.
Ching: Tks for your kind comments. 😉
Your scones look really good! I tried making some but they didn’t rise, have to try this again!
Pigpigscorner: So far my scones can rise. Maybe you can try my recipe for a change. 😉
You Fei: Tks!! Definitely a great choice for Christmas.
Nice scones and nice photography you have here sharing with us 🙂
I love scones and they are one item commonly found serve in afternoon tea.
CK: Tks for your kind comments. Maybe we should go for an afternoon tea one of these days. 😉
Absolutely perfect! I love how soft, moist and fluffy they look. And the cranberries are just right for the Christmas season. Your photography, as always, is super.
The Little Teochew: Tks a lot for your kind words! My scones are not really perfect yet, still have rooms for improvements. 😉
Your scone recipe looks really good. I am a big fan of scones because, unlike other cookies, they are not too sweet…
I’ll definitively give your recipe a try soon.
Gaelle: Tks for dropping by. That’s also one of the reasons I prefer scones than cookies. Hope you will like it. 😉
I once tried scones but turned out more like a cookie than a scone or rathe I had no idea how it was supposed to turn out 😀
Peanutts: Maybe you can give my recipe a try as I have used it for many times and it never disappoint me. 😉
I tried your raisin scones receipe and the texture turns out surprising well. Even though bottom is burnt and sugar not entirely melted. I used Ariston Oven and top and bottom, middle rack to bake. I want to try the cranberry scones too. Can you give me some advice?
Evelyn Ng: Glad to receive your feedback. The recipes for cranberry scones and raisin scones are originated from the same source but will some slight modification. Cranberry scones use baking soda so it will be even fluffier than raisin scones. I think the burnt bottom and undissolved sugar is due to the heat of your oven. Maybe you can try to make a smaller scone size (what was the size you made?), put the lined baking tray in the center and reduce the heat slightly. Hope it helps. Btw, did you follow closely my raisin scone recipe?
Thanks. My scone size is about 6-7cm. I used cookie cutter. Hehe, I use normal sugar and add 60g yogurt to make up 3/4 cup mixture). Does this cause the burnt?
Evelyn: What do you mean by normal sugar? Coarse or fine? Can you find castor sugar (esp for baking)? I bought mine from Cold Storage. The yogurt mixture should only consist of yogurt + milk + egg. Not including the amount for sugar. It’s fine to use cookie cutter. Your scone size is double the size I made. Thus, I suggest that you reduce it to half of its size so that the whole scone can be cooked evenly within the time required. Hope it helps. 😉
Sure looks yummy. How many grams is a cup of flour? How about the oven temperature?
Cassey: Thanks! 1 cup of plain flour = 115 gram (please note that different flour has different weight). The oven temperature is 190C. It was stated in method A step 1. But I had added this info in method B step 8 for your easy referencing. Hope this helps. Let me know how it turns out. Happy trying! 😉
can i just use self raising flour instead?
Blueyme: Self-raising flour contains plain flour, salt and baking powder. According to this link (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/substituting-ingredients.html), the substitution ratio is l cup sifted self-rising flour = l cup sifted all-purpose flour plus 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt. So, please make the necessary adjustments for the related ingredients if you are using self-raising flour. Hope it helps!
[…] My first introduction to scones was during one of my high school home economics classes where we had a whole session devoted to cheese scones. They turned out to be dry rubbery flavourless things we could hardly bite into and I was so disappointed by them that I’ve always been putting off making scones until recently when I fell in love at first sight with the beautifully pictured scones on Food for Tots. […]
I just finished baking scones using your recipe and it’s absolutely yummy! It’s sooo good that I had 3 pieces in a row! I’ve tried so many scone recipes and this is the best ever! This will definitely be one of my regular bakes from now as I just love scones so much… No more buying scones but it will be homebaked from now on 🙂 Thanks for sharing this fab recipe!
Jacqueline: Thanks a lot for your kind feedback!! So glad that it suits your taste bud! Yes, nothing can beat homemade scones. Not only it tastes great, it’s cheap too! Once you have mastered the skill, you can play around with the ingredients used ie mixing dried cranberries with blueberries or raisins. Have fun!! 😉