Cranberry orange scones

Cran-orange scones
Adapted from "Simply Scones," by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright.

I've made several recipes from this small gem of a cookbook over the couple of decades I've owned it, but somehow or another never gotten around to this one. It's a good post-holiday recipe, since it uses up some items you might have lingering after the frenzy.

I made this once last weekend following the recipe exactly. It was perfectly fine, although a tad more on the crumbly side of scones, but very nice flavors. However, I had more cranberries left and I couldn't leave well enough alone so I made it again this weekend with some modifications that I like even better.

I used homemade rum-based vanilla from a previous holiday frenzy.

Ingredients:
½ cup chopped fresh cranberries, plus 2 T. sugar
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup cold butter
2 eggs
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 tablespoon orange liqueur (because I still have a wretched excess)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Peel from half an orange

½ cup chopped pecans

Demerara or vanilla sugar for garnish

Method:

Chop cranberries and finely snip the rosemary. Toss with the 2 T. of sugar and let macerate while you mix up the scone batter.

Mix flour, ¼ cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix together eggs, juice, liqueur, vanilla and orange peel. Stir into dry ingredients. Then gently mix in cranberries and pecans. 

The dough will be quite sticky, so flour a board well, then transfer the dough to the board. (A bowl and dough scraper works really well here. I got one as a free premium from King Arthur years ago and didn’t know until then that it was the tool I’d always needed.) Flour your hands before kneading the dough a few turns, then pat into a half-inch thick circle. Cut into eight triangles; again the dough scraper works well here, otherwise I’d try a floured-serrated knife. 

At this point, you can transfer the scones to a baking sheet covered with parchment paper if you want to bake them immediately. Or you can transfer them to a wax paper-lined container, placing more waxed paper between them if you need to layer them. Cover and refrigerate overnight. (If you can’t bake them within 20 hours or so, I’d try freezing them and then thawing overnight in the refrigerator before baking them.)

When you’re ready to bake them, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and place them about 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden and the outside is solid to the touch. (They should slide easily on the sheet when done.) 

I found that this version had a slightly nicer texture and the scones rose more; not sure if it was the ingredient changes or the chill-and-bake-later method that accounted for that, but it was a pleasant bonus. 

I bought the book from which this recipe stems in the late 1980s for $4.95. It’s still in print and well worth the now $9.95 or so it costs today, with recipes from the savory (the cheese scones make a great soup accompaniment) to the sweet (the blueberry coffeecake scones are a standby in blueberry season).

These scones are nice, and a great way to use up ingredients, but if you’re just looking for a fantastic cranberry scone recipe, my go-to recipe is the crème fraiche scones from Bon Appetit.

And all of them pair nicely with my latest addiction, the White Christmas tea from Harney & Sons.