Woke up to a lovely dusting of snow this morning! Nothing I love more than seeing a blanket of white especially close to Christmas. I spent the morning out and about running errands in the cold weather. So after the girls went down for a nap I decided to treat myself to a delicious, warm butter scone. These scones are my favourite bad treat to make because they’re soft and flaky, and the lemon really freshens the flavours.
The first time I made scones I was quite nervous because I assumed it was a difficult recipe. But really it’s not at all! I have learned a few tricks to help make a flaky scone
Be sure to use very cold butter! These helps give you a crumbly flour mixture when you cut it in with a pastry blender. You want the flour and butter mixture to look crumbly, some chunks so you get good bites of butter. 
If you don’t have one of these tools you can use your hands. After I combine the dry ingredients and butter with my hands, I put it in the fridge while I prepare the wet ingredients so the butter can stay hard. Why? This helps give you those flaky butter layers.
ONLY knead 5-6 times. Try very hard not to do more than six because it will make your scone dough more cake like. You want to leave some chunks of butter to create the flaky layers.
A scone to me isn’t a scone unless it has a really crunchy crust top. And to achieve this you use an egg wash. Simply whisk an egg white and brush it on. This recipe is amazing because for the dough you only need one egg yolk, leaving you the egg white for the egg wash. For an extra crunch you can sprinkle some sugar on top before baking.
Lemon Scones
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Total time: 35 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2tsp salt
- 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter diced
- 3/4 milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp lemon Zest
Lemon Icing Drizzle (if desired)
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and 2 tbsp of sugar (save the extra sugar for the end).
- Cut cold butter in with a pastry blender, knives or hands. Be sure to refrigerate afterwards if you use your hands.
- In a 1 cup measuring cup, mix milk and egg yolk until blended. Save egg white for later.
- Make a centre in your dry ingredients, add milk and lemon zest. Mix till just combined.
- Lay out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5-6 times. NO MORE!
- Shape into a 7 inch disc and cut into 8 pieces.
- Lay each out individually on a lined baking sheet.
- Whisk egg white and brush each scone with the egg wash. Sprinkle with the extra sugar.
- Bake for 20 minutes till nice golden brown.
For an extra lemon flavour you can mix icing sugar and fresh lemon juice. Drizzle the mixture into each scone. I didn’t this afternoon because I wanted to keep this treat light.
Hope you enjoy this recipe! You can also make a plain scone by removing the lemon zest. Add cinnamon or orange zest with some dried cranberries!
Thanks for reading,
Jaclyn Yvonne
Jaclyn Yvonne 