Cranberry Scones with Whipped Clementine Butter
Filled to the brim with plump little craisins, these buttery and sinfully soft scones will be your new favorite baked treat.
Scones are one of those simple pleasures in life that just feel your heart with joy every time you have one. It’s really hard to describe the delight I feel from eating a perfectly buttery and warm scone fresh from the oven, it almost brings a tear to my eye thinking about it. In my opinion it’s a highly underrated baked good and it definitely deserves its moment of glory. Thus bringing us to the creation of this recipe.
Usually, scones have the horrible reputation of being dry and crumbly, it can be further from the truth. Anyone that says these atrocities against scones I swiftly cut them off and interject, “You’ve never had a good scone!” Then I get stares of concern for my innate passion for this British baked good. However, I just shrug off the stares and continue to state my case. A properly baked scone is supposed to be buttery, soft and light as a feather. Not a crumbly mess that tastes like the Sahara. I unfortunately had to learn this lesson the hard way, trying numerous scones and being gravely disappointed every time. Until one day, I had a magical scone at an Afternoon Tea. In that very instant when that scone graced my taste buds my eyes were opened and I realized what an actually good scone could be! I still remember it fondly. It was a soft and buttery buttermilk scone with the plump little raisins served with clotted cream and the most delicious lemon curd. My mouth waters just thinking of it. Anyway, this inspired me to make these Cranberry Scones with Clementine Butter.
Cranberries are better enjoyed by my family so I swapped the raisins for dried cranberries, a perfect substitute that compliments the tangy flavor of the buttermilk. Then I decided to make a citrusy butter instead of making the traditional pairing of lemon curd and clotted cream. I sadly couldn’t acquire the clotted cream. But the clementine flavored butter still helps to accent the beautiful buttery flavor of the scone. Truly these scones are a thing of beauty and pure unadulterated deliciousness!
Cranberry Scones with Clementine Butter
*Makes 8 wedged scones
Scones
3 ¼ cups all purpose flour
¼ tsp kosher salt
½ cup granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 stick cold unsalted butter
1 egg plus an additional egg for glazing
¾ - 1 ¼ cups of buttermilk
1 cup dried cranberries
Clementine Butter
4 TBSP unsalted butter
1 clementine, zested and juiced
⅛ tsp kosher salt
Plump your dried cranberries in a small bowl by adding hot water in order to cover the cranberries, steep them in the hot water for 30 minutes. After they have steeped, strain the cranberries and put them to the side.
Set the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment. In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt; mix.
With a box grater, grate your cold butter into the dry mixture. Rub the butter into the flour until the flour resembles a crumb mixture almost the same texture as corn meal.
Make a well in the center of the flour and add one beaten egg. Then add about ¾ cup of your buttermilk and your plumped cranberries.
Mix together until the flour holds together. If the mixture is a little dry and won’t hold, add more buttermilk a ¼ cup at a time until you’ve reached the max amount specified. You want to make sure you don’t add too much liquid at one time because it will make the dough too sticky thus making use more flour which can lead you to overmixing your scones. You might not need the full amount of buttermilk, if the weather is a bit humid or damp it could affect the moisture of your dough.
Lightly dust the counter with flour and dump out the dough. Fold and pat the dough into a circle, pat the dough down until it is about an inch thick. With a bench scraper or sharp knife, cut the circle like a pizza, creating eight wedges.
Place on the lined baking sheet about an inch apart and brush the tops with the second beaten egg to glaze the scones. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown on the bottoms and lightly golden on top. Place on a wire rack to cool completely. While the scones are cooling make the clementine butter.
Clementine Butter: In a small mixing bowl or food processor, combine the butter, clementine zest, juice and salt. Blend together until a smooth textured butter is formed. Store in a ramekin or glass storage container. Serve with your fresh scones.
*Notes:
If you can not get clementines for the butter, feel free to use a navel orange instead to make this citrusy butter.
If you decide to use fresh cranberries instead of the dried, you will need to add more flour to compensate for the moisture of the cooking berries. I found that only an extra ¼ cup or so is all that is necessary.
As well as adding more flour for fresh berries, you may need to bake the scones a bit longer as well. The added moisture will prolong the baking time but how much time is dependent on your oven. I would start checking the scones at 20 minutes and check them about every 5 minutes or so for doneness. Just be cautious that you don’t over bake them, if overbaked the scones will be sad and dry.