58° F | Schenectady, NY
Not just for tea
While scones are of Scottish origin and traditionally reserved for tea there, Americans prefer them for breakfast or a mid-morning snack. As the popularity of gourmet coffee drinks, such as latte, cappuccino, espresso and the like, has skyrocketed, so has the quest for snacks to go with them. In the past decade, the scone has captured a greater share of the snack market, giving its French cousin, the croissant, a run for its money.
Erika Tebbens of Ballston Spa, a member of the From Scratch Club, added scones to her baking repertoire about three years ago. And the ones she bakes vary by season and when she’s serving them. Posted on September 27, 2012.
Tebbins starts to combine the cold butter with the flour for her scones.
The butter gets cut into the flour.
Work the butter into the dough. It's ok if there are still some small chunks of butter - it will keep the scones flaky when they bake.
Combine the ingredients just until they are mixed, then knead the dough until it no longer looks "shaggy."
Tebbens uses a pizza cutter to divide the scone dough before baking.
A side-view of the scone dough, once it is cut into wedges. Tebbens loves to use in-season ingredients. Here, she uses blueberries and peaches.
Erika Tebbens of Ballston Spa likes to use seasonal ingredients when she bakes scones. Above she gives a milk wash to scones with peach and blueberries before the batch goes into the oven.
Tebbens sprinkles coarse sugar over the top of her prepared scones before she puts them in the oven.
Blueberry Peach Whole Wheat Scones, ready for clotted cream, butter or jam. (Erika Tebbens/For the Daily Gazette)
