Nightmare Before Christmas: Sally’s Blueberry Scones

What could be more iconic than scones and tea at a tea party? How about my recipe for Sally’s Blueberry Scones? These scones are delicious with bursts of intense blueberry flavor and a sweet-tart lemon glaze that just won’t quit. The best part? Break one of these scones apart and take a look at that drop-dead gorgeous blue crumb. It’s irresistible. I confess, I ate one scone before I even started on the stitching, burning my tongue on the hot blueberry juices in the process. I had two more scones this morning.

Number of regrets: 0

This is your new go-to scone recipe. End of discussion. Hell, I’m making a second batch and destroying my kitchen later this afternoon. They’re seriously the easiest thing in the world and require zero decorating skill. Ready? Let’s go.

Gamers, grab your mats:

SCONES:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 1/4 cup heavy cream, plus a bit extra for brushing
• royal blue concentrated food coloring
• black decorating icing

GLAZE:

• zest from one large lemon
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter

Recipe loosely based off of this.

I could shoot myself for the price of those blueberries. Note to self: Buy berries in season.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Sift flour into a large bowl. You’ve seen the crap sifter I have, right? I’m slowly learning that a quick whisk or three yields better results.

Sift in baking powder.

Seems like a lot to me, but what do I know?

Add salt…

Really, why did I bother with this picture?

And sugar. If you didn’t sift all this together, whisk this about a bit to combine.

Woo, sugar.

Cut your cold butter into chunks (I typically quarter each tablespoon) and work in with a pastry blender until your mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Uhhhhhhh…….

Don’t have a pastry blender? Me either. It also suggests using two forks to cut in the butter. That said… stare at forks like they have three heads apiece for three minutes, poke at the butter a bit, shrug, and mash the butter in with your hands. It involves a lot of pressing the flour mixture into the butter and it’s pretty fun in a mooshy sort of way. That’s mooshy, not mushy. There is a difference.

If your end result cakes together like this when squeezed in your fist, you’re doing it right.

Gently fold in your blueberries (which you rinsed, right?!) into your crumb mixture. Take care not to bruise or break the skin on your berries or you’ll get a lot of unsightly bleeding.

I said gently, dammit.

Measure out one cup of heavy cream and add your food coloring. Whatever you do, it has to be gel or (preferably) concentrated. Don’t use liquid food coloring. Mix food coloring into cream until cream is reasonably close to Sally’s skin tone.

Just a bit more than this should be right.

Make a well in the center of your blueberry crumb mixture and pour in the cream:

I’m blue da ba dee… Oh. Um. Hi?

Mix cream into crumb mixture by hand until everything is just incorporated. It will probably be a little sticky, which is fine.

Mid-mixing. So sticky, and feels awful. Yes, you have to do it by hand.

Turn scone dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form into a low rectangular log, about 12″x3″x1.5″. Does that make sense? Hm. Well, how about this, then:

Unnatural looking blueberry log.

At least try to make it as uniform as possible. Cut log in half:

Math!

Then cut each half in half. I could have told you to quarter it, but would you have done it this well?

More math!

Finally, we’ll be cutting each segment in half, diagonally. This will give us the standard triangular scone shape.

Fully segmented. Glorious.

Transfer scones to an ungreased baking sheet and brush the tops with a bit of heavy cream for a nice shine.

Painting: I only enjoy it with food.

Bake scones for 15-20 minutes. Mine took closer to 20 minutes because they were a little thicker. Allow scones to cool.

You could leave them like this. You could… But they wouldn’t look nearly as cool.

For the glaze, zest your lemon as finely as possible.

My mouth shouldn’t water when I’m typing… right?

Cut lemon in half and juice it. Make sure you don’t get any seeds in your juice. One large lemon should yield about 1/2 cup of juice so it all works out.

In a medium microwave safe bowl whisk lemon juice into powdered sugar.

There’s something so satisfying about reducing powdered sugar like this.

Whisk in lemon zest and microwave for about 30 seconds on high. Remove from microwave, add butter, and whisk until smooth.

I might have just straight up drank some of this. #noshame

Time to decorate! make some squiggly black seam lines with your decorating icing using a #3 tip. For the most part, I outlined the scones and went over anything that could be interpreted as a crack. Whatever works, really.

You think I went into this with a plan? Honestly?

Then add the stitch lines. An easy way to do this would be to start with the tip flush with the scone, make a small arc over the seam line, then touch your tip to the scone on the opposite side to break the line:

This takes a while but it’s really nice when you get into your groove.

Allow these to sit for a few minutes so the icing sets up. Drizzle with lemon glaze and serve. You’re done!

Sally’s Blueberry Scones with glaze… in all their glory.

Really, just look at that gorgeous blue crumb.

Would you share these? I wouldn’t share these.

So you’ve got your scones, but what about the tea? I hear CuppaGeek has been putting out some fantastic Halloween-y tea reviews… We have one week of Nightmare Before Christmas left; can you believe it? That means you also have one week left to vote for November’s Featured Recipe! Have you voted yet? Click on over and do that now. I hear the Lemon Bombchu Bars are in the lead…

Coming Up Next: Pumpkin King Pumpkin Pie

Cheers,

Leisel

Remember, cooking IRL doesn’t have to be a Feat of Strength!

Entry for #WeeklyChallenge for #FoodBloggers