Simply Scones with Lemon Zested Sugar
There are certain fundamentals in a woman’s life that appear deceptively easy. Walking in stilettos. Liquid eyeliner. Breast feeding (this according to girlfriends who have experienced motherhood, not from personal experience). And baking perfect scones from scratch.
Scones, like stilettos and liquid liner, have long been my nemesis. In spite of the fact that they require little more than a single mixing bowl and the simplest of baking ingredients, I’ve consistently found them an exercise of frustration.I mean, have you ever tried using “two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips [to] quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps”? Or rubbing “butter into the flour mixture, working until you have lumps bigger than a pea” ? It’s a time consuming task, made all the more complicated by the fact that to achieve a tender, flaky scone, one must work quickly, keep ingredients chilled and avoid overworking the dough.
You might as well be trying to achieve perfect work-life balance. Good luck.
So a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.
Cheat.
Ever since discovering the role of the grater in the making of scones, my life has changed for the better. No painstaking cutting and rubbing of butter into crumbs. Simply chill the butter and grate. It’s about as easy as applying felt-tip eyeliner or walking in stacked heels- which is to say, not super easy. But it does make these Simple Scones with Lemon Zested Sugar somewhat more achievable.
{RECIPE} SIMPLE SCONES WITH LEMON ZESTED SUGAR
{INGREDIENTS}
3 C all purpose flour
1/3 C sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 C chilled unsalted butter, in one large chunk
1 C chilled buttermilk, plus 2 TB more in a little bowl for brushing on top of the scones
Lemon Zested Sugar:
3 TB sugar
1 TB lemon zest
{DIRECTIONS}
one. Prepare butter for grating by placing it in the freezer.
two. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a large baking sheet and set aside.
three. Prepare Lemon Zested Sugar: Mix 3TB lemon zest and 1 TB sugar in a small bowl.
four. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
five. Remove butter from the freezer. Coarsely grate it into the flour mixture.
six. Stir the flour and butter mixture together with a spatula until the mixture resembles course meal.
seven. Gradually add buttermilk, stirring with a spatula until moist clumps form. Don’t overmix, and resist the temptation to add more buttermilk. It’s okay for the dough to look flour-y and ragged-y.
eight. Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead four to five times to bind the dough together.
nine. Shape the dough into a 8″ x 8″ square, about 1″ thick. Cut into 16 even squares for small scones (or into larger rectangles for larger scones).
ten. Transfer squares to the prepared baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Briefly remove from the oven to brush with 2 TB buttermilk and sprinkle with lemon zested sugar.
eleven. Return scones to the oven and bake 10-15 minutes more or until they are golden brown. Serve warm, preferably straight from the oven, with a smear of butter, jam or homemade lemon curd.
{INSPIRED BY}
Simplified from Epicurious’ Cranberry Orange Scones; further encouraged by deliciously perfect and imperfect scones from Smitten Kitchen and Orangette.
