Mema’s orange scones.

Mema had one of those orange scones from Starbucks and decided there wasn’t any reason she couldn’t make one herself. Hers were better.

What you need

• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• a little salt
• 1 stick cold butter
• cream cheese, about 4 ounces
• zest of one orange
• a good handful of dried cranberries, chopped up some
• 1 egg
• about ½ cup heavy cream
• a splash of vanilla
• a little orange juice

What you do

1. Put your flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
2. Zest the orange right over the sugar and rub it around with your fingers a little. It ought to smell like orange before you do anything else.
3. Cut in your cold butter. Add the cream cheese too. Don’t fool with it too much. You want little pieces of both still in there.
4. Throw in the cranberries.
5. Beat the egg with the cream, vanilla and a spoonful or so of orange juice. Pour it in a little at a time. You may not need every drop. Just get the dough to come together. If it gets sticky, you’ve gone too far, so put a little flour on your hands and leave it alone.
6. Turn it out on the counter and pat it into a round. Don’t knead it like bread. Cut it into wedges.
7. Brush the tops with a little cream and put some sugar over them.
8. Bake at 400° until they’re good and golden around the edges, somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes. Watch them. Your oven knows more about this than the clock does.

The orange icing

Just mix powdered sugar with enough fresh orange juice to make it run off the spoon. A little cream if you have it. Drizzle it over after the scones have cooled down some.

That’s about it.

Mema made these because she had the Starbucks one and figured she could make a better one at home.
She could.

I add the cream cheese now.
That part’s mine.