Glazed Cream Scones

Date Completed: 12/5/2021

There’s a darling coffee shop just steps away from our building downtown. Not being a coffee drinker, my favorite item they sell is a vanilla bean scone. Garrett is partial to their blueberry scones.

Several months before attempting this Baking Illustrated Glazed Cream Scones recipe, I attempted to make my own version of blueberry scones. They turned out to be absolutely terrible - one of the worst batches of baked goods that has ever come out of my oven.

The problem wasn’t the recipe, but rather my use of half-and-half instead of heavy cream. I’m not sure why I thought that would be a fine substitution. It certainly was not! Garrett still ate them but later admitted he was just being nice.

However, as we approached the holiday season, I really wanted to try again. I found this recipe in the Quick Breads, Muffins, Biscuits & Scones chapter of Baking Illustrated.

There are a few tricks in this recipe that I really love. The first is that the dough begins in the food processor. After combining the dry ingredients in 6 pulses, you scatter in tiny pieces of cold butter and cut that in for 12 pulses. This recipe actually called for currants to go in for one more pulse. Instead, I used chocolate chips. Oops!

At this point the dough is very floury and crumbly. You transfer to a bowl to stir in the - heavy - cream. You could even just take the blade out of the food processor and stir the cream directly in. I still felt the dough was very floury at this point. It finally comes together after a quick round of kneading on the countertop.

Here’s the second trick that I love about this recipe: the scone-shaping technique. Rather than free-hand rolling or patting the dough into an 8-inch circle, you pat the dough into an 8-inch cake pan! You then turn it back out onto the counter to cut into 8 triangles!

A key thing I learned about that technique is that you need to put a little flour at the bottom of the cake pan before pressing in the dough to shape it. That way it doesn’t get stuck in the cake pan and refuse to turn out! You can always dust off any excess flour. Such a foolproof method for getting evenly shaped scones!

And finally, the third trick of this recipe is why they are called “Glazed” Cream Scones. Before cutting into the 8 triangles, you brush another tablespoon of cream onto the dough and sprinkle with sugar. The recipe calls for a full tablespoon of sugar, but I stopped at half that amount.

Cut them up with a bench scraper (thank you, blog, for helping me justify that purchase!). Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet to bake for about 15 minutes. They will be golden brown. Then cool on a wire rack. Or eat immediately!

Taste Report:

Oh my! We love these scones. I have made them again twice since the original batch at the beginning of December. My most recent batch was this evening right before typing up this post! I grabbed a few additional photos of that batch with Garrett holding up a new mini ring light that I got as a free gift - a fun experiment!

The scones are deliciously flaky with very crisp edges. I adore the buttery flavor! They are not too sweet which is just what you want for a scone. They also aren’t dry which is great. Of course, the chocolate chips don’t hurt the overall taste one bit. These would be fabulous with any mix-in, though.

I typically make these and freeze them individually wrapped in press-n-seal. This makes it so easy to heat up in the morning for a lovely homemade scone on a weekday! Of course, the coffee shop scones still make the breakfast rotation as well.

Mess Report:

Yes, these do make quite a mess. Between the food processor, butter chopping board, large bowl, 8-inch cake pan, etc., there are quite a few dishes involved in the process. I love the 8-inch cake pan trick so much that it does justify the extra dish to clean. I also use that cake pan to measure my flour by weight so that it serves a dual purpose!

The real mess, though, has to be the floury countertops. The step of glazing the dough in cream also ends up in a few leaks down on the countertop. Oh well! Nothing a little spray and a rag can’t fix.

Overall, this scone recipe has saved my scone-baking reputation. The terrible blueberry disasters have almost been erased from Garrett’s memory. Maybe after a few more batches he’ll stop telling that story!

Perfect for both the holidays and a random February day!