Blueberry Scones

To kick off scone week I decided to make a simple yet delicious recipe of blueberry scones! Now usually people like scones that are hard, more crumbly, and less soft. However, these scones are on the softer, melts in your mouth side of the scone spectrum. I love these scones, and as usual, they will be gone from your friends and family eating them all in seconds! I adapted this recipe from the recipe for Master Scones on the blog Sally's Baking Addiction by Sally McKenney. Best eaten with tea or a cup of coffee in the afternoon!

Blueberry Scones:

Servings: 8-16 (depends on the size of them)

Time: 2-2 and a half hours 

Ingredients:

• 
  2 cups all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled & sifted), plus more for hands and work surface
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, frozen or really cold
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or buttermilk (plus 2 Tbsp for brushing)
• 1 large egg
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1–1.5 cups blueberries
• optional: 1/2 – 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, coarse sugar, and toppings such as vanilla icing, salted caramel, lemon icing, maple icing, brown butter icing, lemon curd, orange icing, raspberry icing, a dusting of confectioners’ sugar

Steps

First, combine dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, then grate the cold butter with a box grater into the same bowl. Then combine everything so far using your hands, don't be afraid to get dirty! Pinch together the butter into the dry mixture so you have pea-sized crumbs or a grainy-like texture. Then place this mixture into the fridge or freezer for 5-10 minutes.

Combine the wet ingredients. Whisk together 1/2 cup of heavy cream or buttermilk, the egg, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Then once the flour mixture is out of the fridge or freezer, drizzle the wet ingredient mixture over the dry ingredients and add the blueberries too! Mix well together until everything looks combined, not too dry, and in a dough. 

Flour the surface of where you are working, and put the dough ball on the surface. If it's too sticky add some more flour to your hands, if it's too dry add a teaspoon more of heavy cream or buttermilk. Knead the dough into a ball and flatten it out to about a one-inch thickness. Cut the dough into 8 triangular pieces (or however many you want in whatever size you want). Get a tray out and line it with parchment paper, and put the pieces on the paper leaving about an inch of space in between each. 

Brush the tops and sides of the scones with remaining heavy cream or buttermilk. Then sprinkle on top of that some sugar. (Can be coarse, granulated, brown, or turbinado sugar.) Then refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. (You can brush with the heavy cream and top with sugar before or after putting them in the fridge.) Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400℉. 

Once they are out of the fridge, bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges and top. (Bake for 17-22 minutes if you want them to be harder.) Remove from the oven and let them cool for 10-15 minutes before serving or adding anything else as a topping!