Cranberry Cream Scones

Greetings from Glad daughter #2..

When Malaina is not off on some adventure (here snorkeling off of Radang, Malaysia for a class trip) she is the Compassionate Service Leader in her Singles Ward. I have invited her to guest post her recent baking adventure here:

I had every intention of getting up at 8:00...I was going to get ready for church, do some homework, prepare for a meeting, and make some awesome scones to serve at my meeting. Well, both alarms were mysteriously turned off, and I rolled out of bed at 11:00 with bed hair and Alice Cooper eyes, with guests arriving in 1 hour. I'm a fan of the Barefoot (Contessa)- I never actually cook any of her stuff but I watch her show all the time; the night before, I demanded that my mom get out the Barefoot recipe for scones because I had seen her make them on TV and they looked amazing. It was pretty late and she refused to go hunting through her collection of over 1,000 cookbooks (I'm totally not exaggerating) so I had to make do with "Baking-Class Cranberry Cream Scones" a recipe from

A Passion For Baking, by Marcy Goldman

They were awesome!! In under an hour I was able to throw these together, and have time to shower while they baked. I'm not nearly as good a cook as my mother; instead of neatly rolling out the dough and using a cup or bowl to cut 4" circles as the instructions said;

I pulled out clumps of dough and flattened them into patties and then cut them in half. Some were huge, some were okay sizes; the huge ones I cut again after they were baked and they turned out fine too.

I also didn't take the time to neatly place them on two baking sheets like I probably should have; I stuffed them all on the same sheet and hoped they wouldn't rise so much that they baked together in the oven.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that when they did expand and bake together, that lifting them out individually didn't rip them apart or mess them up- this was a very forgiving recipe.

The instructions said to bake them until golden on the edges- the ginormous scones didn't have the pretty golden edges like the others because they took longer to bake. This wasn't much of a problem as I was able to take the fully cooked scones off the baking sheet and put them on the cooling rack and then place the slightly underdone ones back in the oven- like I said, very forgiving recipe.

Baking-Class Cranberry Cream Scones
By Marcy Goldman

3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 cup butter,cut into chunks
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 to 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, or more as required
1 1/2 cups frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped (Malaina used half frozen cranberries, and half dried cranberries).
Finishing Touches:
Whipping cream
Sugar, for sprinklng

Preheat oven to 425 ° F. Stack two baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchement paper. Arrange oven rack to upper third position.
In a food processor, add flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder and blend briefly. Add Butter and pulse to make a coarse, grainy mixture. Turn out mixture into a large bowl. ake a well i center and stir in eggs, vanilla, and cream to make a soft but firm dough. Fold in cranberries. Knead by hand briefly on a lightly floured work surface and then pat into a large round. Dough should be about 1 inch thick. Cut into 4 inch circles; then cut these in half. Place on prepared baking sheets. Brush generously with cream and sprinkle on sugar. Bake until scones are lightly browned around the edges, about 15 to 20 minutes.

...Mother says...Malaina took these to her Bishopric and they gobbled the whole thing up.