- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 ¼ – 1 ½ cups heavy cream, plus more to brush on the scones.
- Position a rack in the top third of the oven and heat the oven to 400°.
- Thoroughly combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add 1 ¼ cups cream, and stir the dry ingredients into the cream with a fork. Work quickly, stirring as little as possible until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Add more cream a tablespoon at a time if the dough seems too dry.
- Divide the dough into 8 pieces and place on an ungreased baking sheet, allowing at least 2 inches between the scones.
- Brush the top of each with heavy cream, and bake until golden, about 15 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
-
- If you make 8 scones, they are pretty big. It’s fine to do 12. We’ve also halved the recipe when it’s just us and/or we have only a cup, not a pint, of heavy cream.
- We like to mix the dry ingredients ahead of when we might want the scones. Then just pull the mix from the cabinet, add the cream, and bake them when the spirit moves.
- We’ve added currants, dried cranberries, and pomegranate arils. All worked well.
- This is almost exactly the shortcake recipe from The New McCall’s Cookbook (1973), my “go to” cookbook for at least 20 years. This is soooo much easier, and I’m tempted just to use this recipe for 8 scones and call them individual shortcakes. Let me know if you use this recipe and bake it in a pan.Here are the differences in the McCall’s recipe for the shortcake for an 8″ pan. Use the above ingredients and method, except
-
- 1/4 cup sugar, not 1/3
- replace the cream with 1/2 cup butter and 3/4 cup milk
- Cut the butter into the dry ingredients, then mix in the milk as above
- Turn into a lightly greased pan, and press dough into the corners.
- Bake at 450°, not 400°, for 15 minutes – check with cake tester.
-
The Essential NY Times Cookbook, p. 666.
(4.00 out of 5)