I love this recipe; I've baked them three times this month! In the time it takes to preheat the oven, you can mix up the dough and form the scones. While they're baking, you can wash up. In 30 minutes total, you can have fresh baked scones and a clean kitchen too. What's not to love?
The secret to this recipe is the cream. No messing around with cold butter or melted butter. Just dump in the cream, stir, give it a few quick kneads, and it's done. They came out perfect my first try - me, the anti-baker. If I can do this, you can do it too.
Here goes:
2 cups flour (plus extra for kneading)
¼ cup sugar (plus extra for sprinkling on top)
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup dried fruit (I like currants; Chinese Grandma likes to mix golden raisins and dried cranberries)
1½ cups heavy cream (a.k.a. whipping cream; look for 30%+ milk fat)
Preheat the oven to 375°. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add dried fruit and cream, and mix again.
(Normally, I'd stir the dried fruit into the flour mixture to help keep it suspended, but it's really not necessary here because the dough is so thick. Those currants aren't going anywhere. And I found that the floured dried fruit don't look as nice in the finished product.
On the choice of currants: I usually have these around for my fruitcake recipe and for adding to couscous. I think the small size of the currants works well in little scones, and I think the flavor is more interesting than raisins. You can get dried currants in the bulk food section of Whole Foods.)
Dust the dough with flour and give it a few kneads until it's one big lump. It doesn't necessarily need to be a perfect, smooth ball. Chinese Grandma divides into four parts; I divide into three.
Roll and flatten each part into a thick disc, just under an inch thick. Dab a little cream on the top and sprinkle with sugar. (I use brown sugar for this part, but regular sugar would be fine too.)
Cut each disc into six pie pieces. Neater if you use a pastry cutter or chef's knife, but it'll also work to use a butter knife if you're cooking with kids (or can't be bothered to hand wash the other two things). Don't worry too much about how they look; they turn out fine after baking. Chinese Grandma has great pictures of all these steps if you're confused at all.
One batch of dough will yield 18 scones with my method, 24 with Chinese Grandma's. Either will fit on a single cookie sheet. They don't expand too much, but leave some room between pieces. You don't need to butter the sheet.
Into the oven, bake for 15 min or until golden brown. (In my electric oven, it works better if I use the top element.)
Eat!
These scones are AMAZING fresh out of the oven - crisp on the outside; tender and steamy on the inside. I usually can't help myself from scarfing down two or three. If you keep it in plastic, the scones will lose that crispness outside, but it's easily recovered with a couple of minutes in your toaster oven.
Postscript: I can't emphasize how easy and forgiving this recipe is. Case in point: I had a bit of cream left over, not enough for a full recipe, so I mixed together a half batch (to form one disc, eight slices) and baked them in the toaster oven. And they came out grand!
