Real scones, real easy to make.

Every once in a while I fall in love with a specific kind of food and want to eat various versions of it all the time. (As you might imagine, eventually I get sick of that kind of food and move on to something else.) For the last six or eight months or so, scones have been high on my list. I think it started with a few instances of really good scones bought at a coffee shop. From there, it became a sort of goal to try scones in various other places, looking for “the best” scone.

When I unpacked most of my kitchen equipment and put it away in my new kitchen, I began baking again. And because my cookbooks were still packed, I relied on the Internet to find recipes — knowing the whole time that one of my cookbooks contained my very favorite scone recipe. After a few disappointing muffin-like concoctions, I finally dug out the cookbook with the scone recipe, Sunset Recipe Annual, 1997 Edition. This was a cookbook I got from my mother way back then. It has two recipes that I turned to over and over; this is one of them.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons cold butter or margarine. I used butter.
• 1 6-oz container of orange or lemon flavored yogurt (about 1/3 cup).
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel.
• 1/4 cup orange juice

Instructions:

Here’s how I made it for a Sunday brunch at a friend’s house yesterday:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Oil a 12 x 15 inch pan. I used spray oil, which I rubbed into a nonstick pizza pan.
3. Combine flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I did this in my food processor.
4. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles crumbs. This is very easy (and quick) in a food processor. (Indeed, I think food processors were made for making scones and pie crust.)
5. In a separate bowl, combine yogurt (I used pomegranate because I didn’t have any orange or lemon), orange peel (which I didn’t use), and orange juice.
6. Add the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and stir until evenly moistened. This is where the total amount of yogurt matters. The Chobani that I used comes in 5.3 oz containers — not 6 oz. So I added more orange juice to make sure I had enough moisture. And no, I didn’t do this in the food processor.
7. Mound the dough on the prepared pan and then use your hands to pat it into a 9-inch round. The cookbook suggests flouring your hands, but I didn’t need to. I’m thinking my mix might not have been moist enough.
8. Use a large knife to cut down through the dough to make eight wedges but don’t separate them. All you’re doing is scoring the dough so the scones break apart easily later.
9. Sprinkle the remaining sugar on the dough.
10. Bake about 25 minutes, until scones are golden brown.
11. Cut or break into wedges and serve hot or warm.

Here’s what my scones looked like, right out of the oven.

I’m pretty sure that you can modify this in a variety of ways to make different flavors. Next time, I’ll get the orange yogurt and grated orange peel to make it the way I used to years ago.

Download and print this recipe.