Rustic blueberry scones

I bought some beautiful blueberries at the market, and I couldn’t wait to get home and whip up a fresh batch of blueberry scones for brunch.

This is a flexible recipe, so you can substitute other fruit, or even chocolate chips, but I love how blueberries soften and bake down in these scones.

I like a scone that has both crumbly edges and a soft center, which these deliver, and if you use a larger grain sea salt when baking, you’ll also get a few bites with a little pop of salt. Scones use about half the sugar of muffins, so don’t expect the flavor to be super-sweet.

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The addition of heavy cream to the butter and flour mixture makes the dough sticky, so popping the mixed dough in the freezer helps make these much easier to work with.

I recently started weighing ingredients rather than measuring them. The moisture in the air affects the weight of the flour, so weighing the flour helps add consistency to baking recipes. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, simply measure the flour and add an extra tablespoon or two if you feel that it’s needed.

I can’t stress enough the importance of fresh ingredients when baking. I made this recipe with a new jar of baking powder and the consistency was totally different than the last batch that I made. These baked up high and had a soft crumb inside. I don’t buy large amounts of spices, flour or baking ingredients for this reason. It can be more cost-effective to buy in bulk, and I often recommend doing so, but the fresher the ingredients, the better the baked goods.

Ingredients:
1¾ cups all-purpose flour (240 grams), plus 2 tablespoons more for kneading
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ rounded teaspoon sea salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter
Zest of 1 lemon
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon of heavy cream, divided
1 large egg
1 cup blueberries
Optional: large grain sugar for a garnish

The butter needs to be as cold as possible when you make the pastry, so weigh and measure all of the ingredients first so that it’s easy to make the dough without the butter getting too soft.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt to a bowl and whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk ¾ cup of heavy cream with one large egg. The remaining tablespoon of cream will be used to brush the scones before baking.

Cube the butter by cutting one stick lengthwise into 2 long pieces, then cut those again lengthwise to make 4 long pieces before cutting the pieces into 1-inch cubes.

Add the cold butter to the bowl and mix it by hand with a pastry blender. If you don’t have a pastry blender, a potato masher will do a good job.

Work the pastry for a few minutes so that the flour and butter mixture looks sandy with pea-sized pieces of butter.

Whisk in the cinnamon and lemon zest before adding the blueberries to the bowl. Give them a good stir, pour the egg and cream mixture over and stir with a strong spoon or spatula until just combined.

Dust a pastry board or a clean countertop with 2 tablespoons of flour, and pour the dough onto the board.

Dust your hands with flour and gently turn the dough over a few times and shape it into a ball. Even with the extra flour, you will still find this dough soft and sticky. Don’t add more flour; any added flour will make these too dry in the end.

Cut a piece of parchment paper long enough to fully cover a baking tray. Take a pie plate or cake layer pan and place the full sheet of parchment paper over that pan. Lift the ball of dough into the middle of the pan, pressing it down gently with your fingers so that it fills in the pan and has a flat top.

Pop this into the freezer for 20-25 minutes to firm up.

Preheat your oven to 425 F while the dough is chilling in the freezer, and put the oven rack in the middle of the oven.

You don’t want the dough to freeze through; you just need it to chill enough so that you can cut it easily into pieces that retain their shape before baking. Take the dough from the freezer and lift the paper from the pie plate or layer pan, and move the paper and dough to your baking pan. Use a sharp knife to cut the disc into 6-8 triangular pieces. Separate them, leaving at least 2 inches between each piece.

Brush with the remaining tablespoon of heavy cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired. Bake for 20-24 minutes, watching carefully toward the end so that the bottoms don’t burn. Remove the tray from the oven and allow the scones to cool for 5 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.
Cool for an additional 15 minutes before serving.

I love these plain, but you can add a little butter, jam or cream.

These can be stored for 2 days in a tin or a break box. Don’t cover the scones with plastic wrap or store it in a plastic container or the consistency will change.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.