Orange-glazed scones

 

They're talking about a roughly 70-point temperature swing by this weekend. Bring on those low 40s. In the meantime, something best served warm:

Orange scones with maple-orange glaze

Adapted from “Magnolia Table” by Joanna Gaines

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

Zest of 1 orange, divided

¾ cup sour cream

1 egg

1 ½ cup butter, cut into cubes and frozen

3 tablespoons melted butter

1¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon maple syrup

3 tablespoons orange juice

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Sprinkle a large board lightly with some flour.

Mix flour, baking powder, soda and salt and set aside. Muddle half the orange zest into the sugar; a pestle is great for this if you have it, otherwise use a wooden spoon. Mix into flour mixture.

Combine sour cream and egg. Set aside.

Using a pastry blender, cut butter into flour until it reaches the coarse crumb stage. Mix in sour cream and egg and stir to form a dough. Divide in half (a pastry scraper works well here).

Transfer 1 half to prepared floured board. With lightly floured hands, form into a ball and then flatten to a round about ¾ inch thick. Cut into six wedges and place on parchment-lined sheet, placing a couple of inches apart because these babies really spread in the oven.

Repeat with remaining half and transfer to sheet, or to a wax-paper lined freezer storage box and freeze until ready to bake.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes until golden. Cool on sheet on wire rack. (If you're freezing half the scones to bake later, just bake from frozen for about 17 minutes.)

Meanwhile, mix 3 tablespoons melted butter, remaining orange zest, powdered sugar, vanilla and maple syrup. Whisk in orange juice 1 tablespoon at a time until smooth and of desired spreading consistency. Drizzle over warm scones and serve. (If you’re not eating them all at once, store the scones unfrosted and then frost after baking.)

Rating: The best thing about these scones is the frosting. I'm not a huge fan of frosted scones, but the frosting is nice. It helps along the scones themselves, which don't have my idea of a scone-like texture. With that much butter in them, they spread quite a bit and don't have a super lot of lift. The batch I made straight from the freezer spread slightly less, but again, they still don't have that scone crumb. But as I say, nice frosting, so they go down just fine. It was nice to have something to pull out of the freezer on a cold Sunday morning. Before it got really cold, like now.

Follow-up: Turns out I'm not alone in my complaint about the butter content in one of the recipes in this book. (Although really, I can't believe I'm even saying that.)