I Made These - Cherry Scones

Can you believe before today I'd never made a scone before?  I'm 33 years old and I bake, but I've never even thought to try them.  Today I need a treat for Dr. J's work buddies and something for my Sunday School kids tomorrow.  I knew I had a bunch of dried cherries in the pantry, and the thought hit me, "how about cherry scones?"  I found this recipe on marthastewart.com  and just slightly altered it because I didn't have any lemon zest.  Truth here, I didn't actually get to try them because I'm having a no grain, no sugar week but they looked and smelled so delicious and everyone who tried them said they were super GREAT! I will definitely be making them again when I can try them. Plus they were so, so, so easy, pretty much just like making beautiful biscuits.  I definitely recommend them.





Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for counter
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter
1/2 cup dried cherries
1 large egg
5 tablespoons heavy cream, plus more for brushing on scones

Directions
Preheat Oven 425 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Set Aside.

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.  Chop in butter.  (Martha suggest using a food processor on pulse 3 to 6 times until mixture resembles a coarse meal but I just used my pastry cutter because I wanted less things to clean.  It worked just fine).  Stir in cherries.

In a small bowl, beat together egg and cream.  Add to flour mixture.  Stir gently with a fork until mixture just comes together.  Add a little more cream if to dry but you don't want it to be too sticky.

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface.  Shape dough into a circle about an inch thick.  Cut dough into 8 equal wedges.  Put on the baking sheet.  Bush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake until golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes.

I doubled the recipe, made three circles of dough and ended up making 20 scones.  They were perfect!