Cranberry Orange Scones

When we go to the cottage, one or more of the gals always stops at our Local Gourmet Food shop and picks up a frozen pack of these scones. There are so delicious, I just had to go and pick up a pack to have on hand at home. Well, when I saw the price I was determined to duplicate the recipe at home and I'm happy to report that my recipe was voted better then the original.

I'll confess I just whipped up a batch of these last night and I messed up. Didn't put in enough liquid and then too much so we will see how this batch turns out. A necessity of scone consumption (in my opinion) is that they are eaten warm from the oven slathered in butter and jam if desired. The beauty of this recipe is they can be frozen raw, taken out of the freezer the night before you want to bake them and placed in the fridge. I also found out recently that you can freeze your dried cranberrries so it makes it super economical to buy a Club Pack and always have some on hand.

Cranberry Orange Scones

2 cups all purpose flour

½ cup sugar plus more for topping

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ cup cold butter

¾ to 1 cup heavy cream

1 Tbsp orange zest

1 Tbsp orange juice

½ cup cranberries, dried

Preheat oven to 400F. Line cookie tray with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter to bowl and cut into flour with a pastry blender until the pieces of butter are the size of a small pea. Stir in cranberries. And rest of ingredients. Press dough together in the palms of your hands. If it doesn’t hold together, add more heavy cream. DO NOT OVERMIX!

Pour dough onto a lightly floured countertop. Pat dough into desired shape and cut into portions. Melt about 2 Tbsp butter and brush on top of dough. Sprinkle sugar.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly brown.

Can wrap securely in Saran wrap and store in freezer up to 3 months. Defrost before baking.