Fluffy White Chocolate Cranberry Scones

I never used to love scones. They always looked so bland sitting on the tray of continental breakfast pastries that I never gave them a second glance as I reached for an apple Danish or blueberry streusel muffin—poor dry, dusty hockey pucks!

Then a few years ago, I had my conversion moment. It happened during one of my friend’s weekly movie nights. We had all just settled down for the opening sequence of Singin’ in the Rain when she brought out a tray of scones—warm, buttery, fragrant scones that resembled their hotel counterparts about as much as Dobby looks like Hagrid. The heavens parted, choirs sang, and Gene Kelly stepped right out of the screen to claim the first one. For the rest of the movie, which I was watching for the first time, we hummed and sang and made up the words and munched on another melting scone, and yet another.

And another….

Since then, I’ve been experimenting with no end of scone recipes. Oftentimes I’ll polish off an entire batch for the week’s breakfast without finding the time to photograph them—whoops!—but then at a recent Friendsgiving dinner, I had a fun conversation with my UK friend about the British naming of baked goods, which rekindled my dormant scone fanaticism…

From what I gathered, British cookies correspond with a very specific type of American cookies (your traditional round baked cookie, e.g. chocolate chip “cookies”), whereas everything else sweet falls under the category of the British “biscuit.” Of course, this begged the question of what the American biscuit—the fluffy, buttery kind eaten with jam and butter—was named, to which he pleasantly replied: “Those are sort of like scones, I think!”

(Which is about the most adorably British thing that any Englishperson could utter, by the way! Just FYI.)

Of course, being the slightly obsessive-personality-disordered individual that I am, “scone” was a trigger word, and I immediately went home that night and whipped myself up a batch so that I could hoard them for the coming week. White chocolate cranberry scones are my favorite, alongside those vegan fluffy coconut scones I made a while back for my students (that was my last pre-Florida scone fix).

I love using heavy cream in my scones because it imparts the scone a holier-than-thou rich taste that milk or half and half alone can’t achieve. I’ll be experimenting with the sour cream variety soon, but I can vouch for the fluffy, melt-in-your mouth factor that is unique to this particular recipe. Extra liquid moisture means no chance of dry hockey pucks here!

I’ll be making another batch to send out as holiday care packages for my friends soon, along with bunches of fun seasonal cookies and treats! Hope you’re all having an amazing Thanksgiving week with whomever you consider your family—so glad that I get to spend it with all of you here, too!

What’s your favorite type of scone?

 

Fluffy White Chocolate Cranberry Scones

Meet the fluffiest, butteriest scone recipe around! Heavy cream makes these scones incredibly crumbly and moist, but light as well. The sweetness of the white chocolate and tart flavors of the dried cranberries balance this breakfast pastry perfectly.

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Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
• 1 egg
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried cranberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Cut in the cubed butter using a fork. Use your fingers if needed to really get in there and incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients. Your mixture should resemble damp, slightly lumpy sand.
4. Stir in egg and cream until mixture is moistened. Fold in white chocolate and cranberries.
5. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured cutting board and roll dough into three equal rounds (of about 7-inch radius and 1/2-inch thickness). Cut each circle into 6 equal triangle wedges and place them slightly apart on prepared baking sheet.
6. Bake for 15 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges of scones turn lightly golden.