Blackberry Scones

Sunday mornings should be started off with freshly baked goods.  This morning I made Blackberry scones and some biscuits.  

I like my scones on the drier side with the crumbly tidbits at the edges of the scones.  Most scones I find are made too wet, either too much fat and/or buttermilk or cream.  Mine didn't turn out perfect today either.  Mine came out too wet.  It was still pretty darn good.


Scones and/or biscuits take a careful hand.  You don't want to handle too much or the pastry becomes too tough.  I've been able to develop my skills for this working at Bothways Cafe a few years back.  This is one pastry where you can have a great recipe but it's the technical skills and practice that enables great results.


I've been in search of a perfect combo for the dry ingredients but still need to work at it.  The one that comes closet to my ideal scone is from the Grand Central Bakery.  I tweak their dry ratios but used my own for the wet.  The ratio changes also with the "other" flavor components.  If you are using mainly dry fruit and nuts, then you need more of the wet component.  If you use fresh fruit or even frozen, then less.  For this reason, when you are combining the wet and dry, use your judgement and experiment with the ratios until you get the texture of the scones you like.  


Ingredients
Dry
3 cups of All Purpose Flour
1/4 cups of Sugar
1 Tbs of Baking Powder
1 tsp of Salt
1/2 cup of 1 stick of "cold" Unsalted Butter (cut up in dice sizes)
Wet
3/4 cups of Buttermilk
1 Egg
Other
3/4 cups of Blackberries (I like to use frozen berries because it's easier to work with.)
Turbinado Sugar for sprinkling
Kosher Salt for sprinkling


-Preheat your oven to 365
-Mix all the dry ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl. Once combined, add the butter and use blend.  Blending can be done with a stand mixer or food processor or pastry cutter or just using your fingers by pinching the butter and flour between your fingers. The goal is to get a nice crumbly mixture where the dry ingredients Incorporated into the butter and you have a dusty, crushed graham cracker texture.  
-Next, combine buttermilk and egg and put into a pourable cup or measuring cup.
-Add your flavor components now to the dry mixture.  In this case I put the frozen blackberries into the flour/butter mixture and tossed gently.  Now slowly add the milk/egg mixture into the dry mixture a little bit at a time, tossing thoroughly until all the wet mix is incorporated.  The goal is to get the dry mixture just enough of the wet for a moist combo evenly.  
-Dump the final mixture onto a floured hard surface and using a scraper just pull and press the mixture together to form nice round about 2 inch thick.  All you are doing is creating form and not mixing or smashing.  Cut the form into 6 pieces like you are cutting a pizza.  Place each scone onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put the sheet pan into the refrigerator for about 30 min until scones are cold. I find you get flakier scones this way.
-Take the scones out of the refrigerator and brush with any leftover wet mixture.  Sprinkle with sugar and then salt.
-Bake for 35-45 min until golden brown.  Eat right out of the oven or cool about 10 min.


Before going into the oven...

Final product....

Bon Appetite!