Articles

Strawberry Sconecakes

This has been a disappointing year in the strawberry department for me. I’ve had the raved about Harry’s Berries….once.  See, this is my second strawberry season out of my parents’ house and I weirdly haven’t seen my parents all that much this past month. Typically during strawberry season, visits to parents=raiding the refrigerator for Harry’s Berries. No visits–no strawberries.

Strawberry Sconecakes

Strawberry Sconecakes

Hopefully you are not having a similarly barren strawberry season because some of the best desserts have my favorite fruit! Nothing can’t be improved with a side of strawberries, or with incorporated strawberries, or built around strawberries, or ohmygod I need strawberries. Sorry. Back on topic.

Red, White, and Blue Scones

I feel super accomplished because I am getting you a holiday scone recipe before the holiday so you can actually make them for your holiday get together!!! Yeah, I feel proud. Like, American pride!

Red, White, and Blue Scones

Red, White, and Blue Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Bean Scones

Let’s take a quick break from the banana, shall we? There’s only one more (for now) but it’s officially embarrassingly late to post a photo with Easter decorations so I don’t want things to get any more awkward for me. I don’t want to have to wear a paper bag over my head with ‘I’m Not a Scone Baker Anymore” (is it too late to make that joke too?).

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

One of my first recipes on this blog was Strawberry Vanilla Scones. I went on and on about how amazing Gaviota strawberries were and how I was afraid that my usual scone recipe would be too strong of a flavor to work with the Gaviotas. So I used a mascarpone based scone instead. Well it’s well into strawberry season again, but this time I forgot my earlier qualms and decided, “Hey! I’m going to make strawberry vanilla scones!” also forgetting that I already had a strawberry vanilla scone recipe on the blog. Oops. Shows you how many scones I make. 

Recipe: Triple Berry Scones

If two is better than one, than three is better than two, right? Well that answer is a resounding yes when berries are involved, that much I know! Scones with one berry (with me it’s usually strawberry)? Awesome. Scones with two berries? Amazing. But scones with three berries? Transcendent!

I’ll be honest, I really struggled with the desire to turn these into Quadruple Berry Scones. But that just seemed like a slippery slope to Bazillion Berry Scones or Scone Berries where the dough became more berry than scone. Though would that really have been a bad thing? It’d certainly make getting one of your five a day easier if all you had to do was eat a scone. Eat five scones (so not hard to do) and you’re all set for twenty four hours.

Triple Berry Scones

Triple Berry Scones

Recipe: Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

So just in case you couldn’t tell from these, and these, I love strawberries. I really love all berries, but strawberries are my favorite. And as strawberry season begins to come to a close and I start to tear up at the prospect of months and months without this delicious berry, I decided to make another few recipes to get our final strawberry fix. Best part, scones can freeze so if you hurry up and make the scones now, you can enjoy them in the fall when everyone else is eating apples. You’ll be eating strawberry scones and gloating to yourself (not out loud since that’s not nice after all, but inside is totally okay!).

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

When I went to my first afternoon tea as a little girl, one of the finger sandwiches served was a strawberry cream cheese sandwich, and since it was pink and I adored pink I had to love it. Ever since, strawberry cream cheese has become one of those things I buy at the store with excitement but then rarely get around to using because I forget to buy bagels. Now, I’ll never have wasted strawberry cream cheese again because I can always make these scones! They are sooooo creamy and moist that I can’t put enough “ooooo” at the end of the “so” to get my point across. Think similar to the scones that use mascarpone cheese like Vanilla Dream scones or the Strawberry Vanilla scones that were my last strawberry creation.Yeah, they rival that level of creamy, mouth-meltingness.

The cream cheese doesn’t overwhelm the strawberries, but instead just adds a delightfully subtle tang and lots of cream. Did I mention they were creamy? Okay good.

But the best part about these scones (besides the giant chunks of strawberries) is the color…BRIGHT PINK!!! Five-year-old Jenna is dancing around in her twirly dresses with joy. These are the perfect scones for a little girl’s afternoon tea party, baby girl baby shower, or just a day that needs a little pink thrown in.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

strawberry cream cheese scones

ingredients

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup chopped strawberries
  • 200 g strawberry cream cheese
  • up to 6 tbsp water as needed

directions

Preheat oven to 220°C (450°F). Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, strawberries, and cream cheese. Rub together the ingredients until evenly clumped. Add the water a little bit at a time and then knead into the dough until smooth. Do not overwork, but you don’t need to be as overly concerned with being delicate as you do with cream scones.
Place dough on a very floured surface and knead a few more times. Pat out to 1 cm thick. Cut 5 cm rounds from the dough with biscuit cutter and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Reform and continue until there is no more dough.Bake for 8-10 minutes (8) until lightly browned and cooked through.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Ooooo, so many fun ideas: cut into flowers or hearts, top with more strawberries, top with a vanilla or lemon glaze….so those might not be traditional (and by traditional I mean British) scone things to do, but when strawberries are involved tradition can go out the window.

Recipe: Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

I love peanut butter. Like LOVE IT. So much so that I could probably live off it. In fact if you saw my pantry, you’d probably think that I do. There’s crunchy peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, white chocolate peanut butter, cinnamon raisin peanut butter, almond butter (yes I know that doesn’t technically count but it’s still fantastic and obsessive), dark chocolate peanut butter, honey peanut butter, banana nut peanut butter, powdered peanut butter, and there may or may not be even more jars of the same varieties because I’m so afraid to run out of peanut butter that I buy extra jars unnecessarily.

And by may or may not, I totally mean there is. What? I eat it with practically everything! It’s delicious!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

So it was a no-brainer that peanut butter scones, and possibly a whole host of peanut butter based scones, would eventually show up on this site. Hey, if I can make scones out of mascarpone cheese, why not peanut butter? Okay those have nothing to compare each other to and I just wanted to justify my peanut butter obsession.

Recipe: Strawberry White Chocolate Coconut Scones

They say that inspiration comes from everywhere around us, and I’d agree. I am constantly walking along, minding my business, when out of the orange colored sky, FLASH! I see something that inspires a new scone flavor. It literally happens anywhere.

This combination has a magical inspiration behind it. Disneyland, in fact. During the strawberry harvest, Disneyland’s candy makers cover the most gigantic sweet strawberries in the world with the most incredible dark, milk, and white chocolate coatings. They were probably the most delicious fresh made treats those candy makers could have offered us. And my favorite coating–which I haven’t found in years–was the white chocolate and coconut covered strawberry.

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

These scones were my attempt to recapture that incredible flavor of a childhood treat, and I have bad news for you: say good bye to your waistline and apologize to your friends now because not only will you not share these, but you will eat the whole batch in an unprecedentedly short time span. I brought some in for a few of my coworkers to taste test, and already their parents are requesting them (though how the parents snagged a bite I’ll never know). Rest assured coworkers, I’ll be bringing these to the staff meeting this week.

You’d think that based on the combination of sweet flavors from white chocolate, sweetened coconut flakes, and strawberries (again from Harry’s Berries) this scone would be cavity-inducing sweet, but since the base is my basic cream scone, there is a pleasant mildly salty element to counteract the sugar. Which makes them totally acceptable for mass consumption, right?

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

Strawberry White Chocolate Coconut Scones

Ingredients

  • 200 g self rising flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut, divided
  • 150 mL heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 220°C or 450°F.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
Sift together flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Add sugar. Toss in strawberries, white chocolate, and 1/4 cup coconut until well distributed.
Work in whipping cream until all ingredients are fully combined. This is a very wet dough! Don’t worry you didn’t do anything wrong.
Turn out onto a heavily floured workspace and knead a few times. Pat down to desired thickness (1 cm). Dip scone cutter in more flour before cutting scones out (5 cm) and placing on baking sheet. THIS IS ESSENTIAL. Because the scone dough is so wet, you need a hefty additional amount of flour to make everything manageable when kneading and cutting. Knead offcuts back together and repeat process until most of the dough is used.
Brush tops of scones with water and sprinkle remaining coconut on tops.
Bake 8-10 minutes until starting to brown. These scones don’t rise, but they do spread out so make sure you have left some space in between the scones on the baking sheets.
Remove immediately to a wire rack to cool.
These scones not only don’t require a topping of cream or jam, but a topping would probably ruin them (way too many flavors in too small of a package) so forego any clotted cream, curds, or jams when serving these scones. Their deliciousness speaks for itself.
Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Coconut Scones

And make about 4 batches at a time, just to be safe 😉

Recipe: Strawberry Vanilla Scones

My favorite fruit is strawberries, but this comes with a problem. When strawberries are bad, they are terrible, tart, and tasteless. Luckily, the strawberries sold at my local farmer’s market are the best strawberries you will ever taste. Gaviotas they are called by the farmers at Harry’s Berries, but they should be called Perfection. These are the most incredible strawberries I have ever tasted.

So naturally, I had to turn them into scones. Only logical progression, right?

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Gaviotas are incredibly sweet on their own and have a very strong flavor, so I felt that my usual scone recipe would have a too marked taste itself to meld with the strawberries. The two would be battling for supremacy, not enhancing each other’s deliciousness. Instead, I chose to mellow the scone’s flavor using a mascarpone cheese base and adding vanilla bean paste for supporting the Gaviotas.

Mascarpone is a mild Italian cream cheese reminiscent of butter or British clotted cream (that wonderful spread that improves almost any scone); using it as the binding agent and fat source in the dough made for a wonderfully creamy and delicate scone. The scone’s interior will literally melt in your mouth as the essence of the strawberries permeates every bite.

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberries–or at least this variety–are an interesting fruit to bake with. Most berries seem to become almost more tart and brightened once heated, but these strawberries seemed to mellow. Maybe it was the mascarpone and vanilla’s influences, but these strawberry scones were not strawberry-candy-esque, but rather the summer British dessert of Strawberries and Cream turned into a scone.

These are perfect for a sophisticated, feminine occasion like a baby shower tea party. Do not top with anything other than the thinnest layer of clotted cream. The scones are moist enough to not need a topping, and an additional flavor will overwhelm the soft strawberries.

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Strawberry Vanilla Scones

Ingredients

  • 200 g all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla paste or 1 scraped vanilla bean
  • 200 g mascarpone
  • 1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 220°C or 450°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add sugar and mix until well blended. Toss in strawberries until they are well dispersed.
Work in the vanilla paste and mascarpone until the dough has formed even sized clumps. Sprinkle water over dough and knead until clumps come together. This is an extremely wet dough.
Place on a heavily floured work surface and pat down to desired thickness (1 cm). Cut out scones with a cutter (5 cm) dipped in more flour and place on baking sheet. Knead scraps back together and repeat until the majority of the dough has been used. In between kneading rounds, replenish the work surface’s flour coating.
Bake for 7-9 minutes until lightly browned on top. These will rise only a little bit.
Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Savor.