– 2 ½ cups Flour
– 1/2 cup Sugar
– 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
– 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
– 1/2 teaspoon Salt
– 8 tablespoons Butter (one large stick of cold butter)
– 3/4 cup Sour Cream (unflavored or vanilla yoghurt would do as well)
– 1 whole Egg
– 1/2 cup Dried Cherries
– 1/2 cup Sugared Dried Pineapple, cut into little cubes
– 1/2 cup Slivered Almonds
– 1 additional tablespoon of Sugar
Topping Glaze:
– 2 cups of Powdered Sugar
– 1/4 cup Whole Milk
Garnish:
– 8 additional Dried Cherries
– 24 additional Slivered Almonds
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees; arrange the rack so you are baking in the middle of the oven.
In a large mixing bowl add the dry ingredients: flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Using a wire whisk, mix them together.
In a small mixing bowl place the sour cream and the cracked whole egg, and whisk them together. (Obviously: you take the egg out of the shell!)
Using a grater, carefully grate the cold stick of butter into the dry ingredients. It is best to grate a third of the butter stick into the dry ingredients, then stir them together with the whisk, add another third of grated butter and stir, and then complete doing the same with the last third of the stick of butter.
[NOTE: Please be really careful not to get your fingers near the grater. A good tip is to hold the butter firmly using the paper the stick of butter was wrapped in, that way you have a good hold of it.]
Once the gratings of butter are all flour and sugar coated, add the dried cherries, diced dried pineapple, and slivered almonds, and stir them into the dry buttery batter.
Add the sour cream and egg mixture, and mix them in as well. I find that continuing to use the wire whisk is great for this for the first minute or so.
At a certain point the mixture will be so clumpy, that you will need to get into the bowl with your clean hands and kneed the dough, making certain to blend in the remaining flour at the bottom of the bowl.
Once you get the scone dough kneaded into a ball, place it on a floured surface, and cut the dough in half. Roll each half into a ball. One at a time, take each dough ball, and press it out into an eight or nine inch round circle of dough, that is about three quarters of an inch thick. Pat it together nicely into a smooth wheel. Take one tablespoon of additional sugar, and rub it onto the top of your dough wheel.
With a sharp knife, as though the circle of scone dough was a pie, cut it down the middle four times, so that you have eight concentric slices just like you would cut a pie or a cake.
Take each of the pie wedge shaped triangles of dough, flour and sugar coat the edges, and form them into finished looking triangles. One by one repeat this process, placing each scone on a cookie sheet that has been covered with parchment paper, or a thin coating of oil or kitchen spray, to avoid sticking. If there is room, place the eight triangular scones on the cookie sheet with an inch separating each of them.
Repeat the process with the second ball of dough, giving you 16 scones. When you have the additional eight scones formed, place them on the cooking sheet as well. Arrange the cooking sheet so than none of the scones touches each other, or the sides of the pan.
NOTE: If you want to make eight large scones, instead of 16 medium sized scones, the cooking temperature remains the same.
Bake them for 15 to 17 minutes in the oven, watching them carefully. You want them a nice golden brown on top, but you do not want to burn the bottoms.
When they are baked, remove them from the oven, and let them cool off for 5 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the glaze for them.
In a mixing bowl add two cups of powered sugar and one-quarter cup of milk, and whisk them together with a wire whisk. Arrange the eight cooled off triangular scones on the cookie sheet or the wax paper covered kitchen counter in one or two rows, like the scones are the interlocking teeth of a zipper. Place the glaze in a measuring cup with a spout on it, and evenly drizzle lines of glaze across the scones. You don’t want a full coating of sugar glaze, just tasty stripes of glaze across the scones.
While the glaze is still wet, artistically affix a dried cherry to the top of each scone, and three slivers of almond at each point of the triangles. The glaze will set up pretty quick, but it will glue down the decorative cherry and almonds.
Make a cup of tea or coffee, and dig in! These scones are the “bomb!”
[NOTE: If you have leftover scones, put them in a sealed container, or a zippered food storage bag, as you don’t want them drying out.]