Cream Tea Café

These are the perfect creamy, sweet, crumbly scones for a fantastic cream tea. These scones stay fluffy for days, but are best enjoyed fresh from the oven. This recipe comes to us from The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook.

Cream Scones

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
• 1 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425°F or 200°C. Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar and salt) until combined. Cut butter into small cubes. Mix butter into dry ingredients using pastry blender, fork or fingers, until mixture resembles coarse meal with few butter clumps. Stir in heavy cream until dough begins to form. Transfer dough to a floured surface for further kneading before rolling out the dough to about ¾-inch thickness or 2 cm. Cut pieces using a biscuit cutter or a pleasing sized glass. Place rounds on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until lightly browned on top: 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes.

Variations include substituting part of the heavy cream/butter with clotted cream for added richness, or mixing in some cranberries or currants before stirring in the cream. If you want a more versatile scone for both sweet and savory purposes, then you can easily reduce the sugar for a neutral taste.

For a review of this recipe and an eloquent search for the perfect scone, see Smitten Kitchen‘s food blog on the subject: dream a little dream of scone.