These are the orange scones from Chapter Three of Come In. It's Already Warm., written on a card that has been folded once and gone soft at the fold. The card says they ought to smell like orange before you do anything else. It is right.
They are the scones I would make on a holiday morning, when the house is full and nobody is in a hurry yet. The cream cheese keeps them tender, the cranberries keep them from being too sweet, and the glaze is nothing but orange and sugar.
What you need
Eight wedges.
- 2 cups flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- A little salt
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1 stick (½ cup) cold butter
- 4 ounces cold cream cheese
- A good handful of dried cranberries, chopped rough
- 1 egg
- ½ cup cream, and a splash more at high altitude
- A splash of vanilla
- A spoonful of orange juice
- Cream and sugar, for the tops
- For the glaze: powdered sugar, fresh orange juice, a little cream
How to make them
- Heat the oven to 400°F.
- Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a big bowl. Zest the orange right over the sugar and rub it in with your fingertips until the sugar goes damp and pale gold.
- Cut in the cold butter, then the cream cheese the same way. Do not fool with it. You want little pieces of both still showing. Toss the cranberries through.
- Beat the egg with the cream, vanilla and orange juice. Pour it in a little at a time, and stop, and pour again. Watch the dough and not the measure. When it holds, stop. If it goes sticky, a little flour on your hands, and leave it alone.
- Turn it out and pat it into a round. Do not knead it. Cut eight wedges with a long knife. Brush the tops with cream and sprinkle them with sugar.
- Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until good and golden at the edges. Your oven knows more about this than the clock does.
- While they bake, stir powdered sugar with fresh orange juice until it runs off the spoon, and a little cream into that. Let the scones cool some on the rack and drizzle it over in thin loose lines.
Notice. Have extra. Hand it over.
At altitude
At nine thousand feet a scone dough dries out faster, so the recipe asks for a splash more cream up high. Add it a little at a time. The line that matters most is the one in the fourth step: watch the dough and not the measure. When it holds together, stop.
More from the same kitchen
The house runs on scones. If you bake at altitude, Scones at Nine Thousand Feet is about why they need different rules up here, and The water between places is where these orange scones first turned up, at the end of Episode Three.
Come In. It's Already Warm. comes out on Thanksgiving Day with these scones, a pumpkin bread, a maple pecan scone and the rest of the house's recipes inside, beside the maps and the plates. The signed hardcover is $79 from the house, and the Kindle edition is $9.99.