White Chocolate Cranberry Scones

Sometimes I crave white chocolate. This is weird, not because white chocolate is the obviously inferior chocolate, but because the creamy sweetness that I enjoy also makes me slightly queasy in sufficient quantity. None the less, I had been putting off making a batch of oatmeal cranberry white chocolate cookies for a few months. The cookies (along with homemade bread, experiments from Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican cookbook, and an endless supply of coffee) were part of a fond tradition of baking with Mary Menville in the kitchen of her dorm and bitching about how much we hated everyone at the college we went to.

I kept defaulting to cookies, part out of nostalgia, part out of laziness, and part out of not having an idea what else to hide it in. Accusing the entire Internet of conspiracy to cover up white chocolate recipes seems silly. The truth is, I probably just glance over them. I thought about doing scones before. My Betty Crocker Cookbook (don't hate, this was a fantastic book to have in college because anything you wanted to cook from it could easily be obtained by rummaging through cabinets or knocking on a few neighbors' doors. And the desserts usually turn out perfectly) has a picture of some sort of white chocolate scone in it. I'm sure it was the large crystals of sugar glistening on top which attracted me. I mentioned making them a few times to Shira. Her response was usually to shrug and talk about orange-dark chocolate scones. Foiled.

The pieces fell into place: a craving, a stumbled upon recipe, a visiting friend to foist baked good upon (especially if I botched them). I could do a breakfast thing, fulfilling Ten-Forward's mission of non-stop delicious food, and finally scratch the white chocolate itch. The recipe I used was not from the Betty Crocker Cookbook (to be honest, I forgot about it until I was writing this up). It was supposed to be much fancier: buckwheat flour and fine cornmeal were used in addition to all purpose flour. In my early morning grogginess at the coop I forgot to grab buckwheat flour. The rest of the modifications came as a result of what I had on hand: cranberries for the cherries, less white chocolate because I didn't feel like getting two bars and leaving half of one to sit in the fridge for an eternity, and no added corn meal because I didn't feel like it.

Despite all of my modifications, I really enjoyed these scones. They had a wonderful texture. And even though I only used two-thirds of the chocolate the original recipe called for, it was quite enough chocolate for me. Springing for a nice white chocolate probably helped mask that there wasn't a ton of it. Check out the original recipe here: David Lebovitz's White Chocolate Sour Cherry Scones.

White Chocolate Cranberry Scones

This is a modified version of David Lebovitz's White Chocolate Sour Cherry Scones. I encourage you to check out the original, which is a much more interesting and complex (in terms of ingredients, not effort) scone.

Baking time: around 25 minutes, at 400 degrees

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup cream
1 large egg
1 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup (100 g) chopped white chocolate (for me this was one bar of Green and Black's white chocolate)

Glaze
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp milk

Makes six or eight scones.

1.) Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt together.

2.) Cube the butter and chill it. I put it in the freezer because I was going to take the food processor route. If mixing by hand or with a pastry cutter, the fridge should is fine. Once chilled, cut into the flour mixture. I put it in the food processor which created more stuff to wash but satisfied my early morning(ish) laziness. (One day, I will own a pastry cutter). You're looking for pea-sized chunks of flour and butter. Be careful not to over mix in the food processor. I did around ten quick pulses.

3.) Mix the egg and the cream together and then add to the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just combined and then add the chopped white chocolate and the cranberries. Mix until the dough comes together. It will be quite crumbly. Do not add any extra liquid yet.

4.) Dump the dough onto a floured work surface. Bring it together and fold it over itself a few times. The crumbs should magically come together, where once you had a pile of dry failure shedding white chocolate and cranberries. Press any escapees into the dough ball and form into a round about eight inches in diameter.

5.) Cut into 6 or 8 wedges. Place the wedges on a baking mat or parchment paper (the bottoms do get burned otherwise). Mix the yolk and milk, then glaze the tops of the scones. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.

6.) Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes.