The World's Messiest Recipe

 We celebrated Susie's birthday on June 28 with one of our many Mother-Daughter Drink Selfies - except this time logistics dictated we get help from an outside photographer. (Kobe's drinks are really tasty!)

 

 

 THE WORLD'S MESSIEST RECIPE

All right, it's possible there may be other recipes just as messy, but I've been cooking for a long time, and it's the messiest recipe I've ever tackled. It is also totally delicious and worth the mess. (I suppose one could wear disposable gloves, but I need to get right in there and "feel" what I'm doing - in this case, getting covered in "goop.")

A bit of background:

Because of my allergy to chemical preservatives, I make far more things "from scratch" than most people, particularly after the Publix Bakery reduced their list of preservative-free pastries to three varieties of mini-muffins, two of which I don't like. Sigh.

I am particularly fond of scones, and have had good luck using the mixes provided by King Arthur Flour (highly recommended), but I wanted to try making scones from scratch. So I bought a book of scone recipes and set to work. Horrid disappointment. No matter which recipe I tried, the scones were dry and had little taste.

Okay, maybe it was the cookbook. I ordered a different one. It didn't seem to feature as many exotic ingredients as the previous one, but maybe . . .

Hmm. The first recipe I tried came out quite well, certainly a vast improvement on the "dry as a bone" scones in the previous cookbook. So I chose "Raspberry White Chocolate Scones," never suspecting what I was getting into.

Repeat: this may be the world's messiest recipe, but it's well worth the effort. Not only does it taste sublime, but it freezes well. I cut each triangle into three pieces and freeze the pieces six to a bag - which means I have "fresh" scones for a load of days, with no more effort than remembering to take the bag out of the freezer the night before.

So here it is, the World's Messiest Recipe:

RASPBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE SCONES

2½ cups flour

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon lemon zest*

1 tablespoon baking powder

8 tablespoons butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

½ cup sour cream

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup white chocolate chips

½ cup raspberry jam

2 tablespoons white granulated sugar

2 tablespoons milk 

 

*I have a spice container of dried lemon zest, but fresh would likely be even better. 

 

Take butter out of fridge enough ahead of time to be sure it's room temperature. You will also need a floured bread board or something similar, big enough to knead in the final ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350°; line a sheet pan with parchment.

1.  Combine flour, salt, lemon zest, brown sugar & baking powder. Stir to mix well. 

2.  Add butter; blend into dry mix using your hands until it resembles coarse crumbles.

3.  Add vanilla, sour cream & eggs; mix together to form thick dough.

4.  Add white chocolate chips & fold them gently into the dough. 

5. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface; roll into a ball. 

6.  Flatten ball into a 1" thick round disc.

7.  Spread the jam across the disc, then fold in half, and in half again. Roll the dough back into a ball. 

8.  Flatten it once more into a 1" thick disc, making the edges as even as possible. The jam should now be well-swirled into the dough. (And you will undoubtedly want to scrub your hands before proceeding any further!)

9.  Move the dough - CAREFULLY - onto the parchment paper; cut the disc into 12 triangles.

10.  Brush scones with milk then sprinkle with white sugar.

11.  Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until edges are golden brown.

12.  Remove to cooling rack.

 

Reminder:  though yummy warm, these scones also freeze well.

Grace note:  this recipe is adapted from Super Scrumptious Scone Cookbook by Nancy Silverman.

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Thanks for stopping by,

Grace (Blair Bancroft)