Small details can make a big difference in baking. With the rights tips and tricks, your baking can go from OK to outstanding! For scones, keeping your ingredients and dough cold before baking them is really important. This is achieved through grating frozen butter into the dry ingredients and refrigerating the scones before baking them. Other details of great importance – don’t over-mix the dough, and be sure to use heavy cream or thick buttermilk.. almond milk or 1% have no place here.
On another note, raspberry & white chocolate is an outstanding combination. It’s royalty among scone flavours.
Raspberry White Chocolate Scones
Tender, buttery scones with a slightly crisp exterior. Raspberry & white chocolate is an outstanding flavour combination, however the recipe adapts easily to other delicious add-ins.
Servings: 8 scones
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ cup unsalted butter, frozen in one piece
- ½ cup full-fat buttermilk or heavy cream* (plus more for brushing), cold
- 1 large egg, cold
- 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
- ½ cup raspberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed if frozen)
- ½ cup chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips
- sugar (granulated or coarse) for sprinkling on top
Instructions
- If your butter isn't already frozen, put your ½ cup of butter in the freezer for at least 15 minutes while you assemble your ingredients. If possible, have the butter as one whole piece to make grating it easier.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Grate the frozen butter into the bowl. With a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingers, mix the butter into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles a coarse meal (pea-sized crumbs of butter will be visible – see photo below)
- Whisk together the cream or buttermilk, egg, and vanilla in a measuring cup or small bowl. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix gently with a spoon or spatula. Mixture should be slightly dry with some flour still visible. Add the raspberries and white chocolate and gently incorporate. Don't over-mix.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and bring it together with your hands, pressing the dry spots into the more moistened areas in the dough. The dough should hold together and be slightly sticky. If excessively sticky, sprinkle a little more flour on it, and if excessively dry, add a little cream or buttermilk. Shape the dough into a large circle, at least an inch thick.
- For triangle-shaped scones, cut the circle into 8 equal pieces as you would a pizza (see picture below). For circle-shaped scones, use a cookie cutter dipped in flour to cut out circles. Place scones on a lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Brush tops with cream or buttermilk and sprinkle lightly with sugar.
- Refrigerate the pan of scones for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400°F. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until scones are golden brown on the edges. Let cool for a couple minutes on the pan, then remove scones and let cool slightly on wire racks before enjoying. Scones are best eaten warm but will keep 2 or 3 days at room temperature.*
Notes
- Thick cream, milk, and buttermilk make the best scones. If making your own buttermilk, use at least 2 or 3.25% milk (1.5 tsp vinegar + fill up to 1/2 cup milk and let sit 5 min. to curdle). I often use 10% cream as I have this on hand for my coffee.
- Keep your ingredients COLD. This is why we use frozen butter, cold cream and eggs, and refrigerate the scones before baking. If the dough isn’t cold, the scones will spread too much.
- Do not over-mix your dough. There may be some small chunks of butter and some visible flour but that is ok as long as the dough holds together.
- Scones can be frozen before baking, and can be baked fresh right out of the freezer, adding a few minutes to the baking time. Scones also freeze well after baking.
- Other great flavour combinations:
- Blueberry & Lemon – substitute 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries for the chocolate & raspberries, and add 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- Cherry & Chocolate – substitute fresh or frozen pitted cherry halves for the raspberries and semi-sweet or dark chocolate for the white chocolate
- Blackberry & Orange – substitute 1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries for the chocolate & raspberries, and add 1 teaspoon orange zest
