Happy National Scone Day!

Posted on by Clay Rivers

In honor of National Scone Day, I’m posting my cranberry-orange scone recipe. Just so you know, the secret to making great scones is in the technique—work quickly. If you can make biscuits, you can make scones. Unfortunately for me, when I started making scones my experience with biscuits was limited to slathering butter and jelly on them and devouring them and it took many attempts to get to resemble triangular-shaped cobblestones.

Clay’s Cranberry-Orange scones

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into tiny cubes
  • 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
  • zest of 1/2 large orange
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1 tablespoon clotted cream (optional, but it makes a huge difference in the taste)

Preheat oven to 415°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

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Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar together. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or food processor until the mixture looks like sand. Cut in clotted cream. Fold in cream, orange zest, and cranberries.
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Form dough into ball and turn out onto a lightly floured cutting board. (Okay, so I went a little heavy with the flour on the board.) With rolling pin, form 7-inch disk.

 

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Cut into eight wedges. Lightly brush with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar.

 

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Transfer to baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the outside is golden brown and the insides are done.

 

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Transfer for wire rack to cool. Slather on some room temperature butter. Nom-nom-nom!