Cranberry-Almond Scones

The other day, someone asked me for a scone recipe that didn't require cream. Oddly enough, I had one, so I sent it along to her and that was that.


Or so I thought.


Ever since the word "scone" had popped in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about how wonderful they are straight from the oven, about that delectable texture, and in the case of this particular recipe, the lovely combination of almond and cranberry.

So I caved, and this morning I baked a batch. True to form though, I finagled with the usual recipe which calls for a standard 2 cups of flour and made some crazy substitutions. The oringal recipe also calls for you to grate a stick of frozen butter into the dry ingredients with a box grater, but I had discovered mid-recipe that my box grater was in the dishwasher, in the middle of a cleaning cycle.

Time to improvise!

I tried tossing the dry ingredients and the frozen butter chunks (butter is very hard to cut when rock-solid, let me tell you) into my food processor, but that frozen butter did little more than whirl around and make disturbing "I am so going to break your food processor" noises, so I quickly put an end to that.

I ended up dumping the flour mixture and butter back into the bowl they'd originally been in and just walked away for about 15 minutes to let the butter soften. Then I worked it in by hand.

Moral of the story: Always make sure that absolutely everything you need is on hand BEFORE you start cooking, but be ready to improvise if you have to. :)

All's well that ends well though, these scones are almost perfumed with the scent of almond and have a delectable texture, not hard at all. I had a funny thought while I was making them. I've had some rather hard, rock-like scones in the past, and I got to giggling when I remembered an English professor of mine telling us about the Stone of Scone - and I swear he pronounced it like "Stane of Skoon," - and I got to laughing thinking that if these turned out rock-hard, I could call them the Skoons of Stane.

Click for crickets

Ok, ok, I might be the only person to find that amusing, but I liked the pun. The stone of scone (stone of destiny/coronation rock) versus the scone of stone (inedible baked good).

These scones were neither rock-hard nor inedible, and they are very, very easy to make, even with a mad dash around the kitchen looking for the box grater.

Cranberry-Almond Scones

Ingredients:

• 1 cup All-Purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 1 tablespoon flax seed meal
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 8 T butter, cold and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• Turbinado sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the All-Purpose flour, almond meal, oat flour, flax seed meal, chopped almonds, baking powder and salt until well-combined. 
3. Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
4. Stir in the dried cranberries and give a quick mix.
5. Whisk together the egg, almond extract and sour cream until smooth, then pour it into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Work it together into a rough ball and then turn out onto a long piece of waxed paper coated with flour. This dough is going to feel like a sticky mess - don't worry, it will come out right.
6. Flour the top of the the dough and fold over the wax paper onto the top of it and gently smoosh the dough down until you've shaped it into a 1-inch high rectangle. 
7. Peel the waxed paper back off the dough and with a biscuit cutter, cut out rounds or cut the dough into triangles with a knife. 
8. Place the scones on the baking sheet, sprinkle lightly with turbinado sugar and bake for 15-17 minutes or until they start to turn golden-brown. 
9. Let cool 5 minutes, and then serve warm.

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