Recipe for Lemon Verbena Blueberry Scones

Our lemon verbena is getting huge. We have it in a pot outside and it is really tall, it looks like a tree in a small pot:) If you haven't grown or experimented with lemon verbena, I highly recommend you try to find some. I love it! Sometimes I go outside just to smell the leaves, yes I am a nerd.

I hate letting good things go to waste so I decided to make lemon verbena blueberry scones. I chopped up the leaves really finely and added them into the scone mixture. To bring out the lemon flavor I also added lemon zest. I carefully stirred in the blueberries and baked up the scones. They were fantastic. The lemon verbena made the scones extra special.

Does anyone have lemon verbena recipes to share? If so, send them my way. I might try ice cream or sorbet next!

Lemon Verbena Blueberry Scones

(Printable Recipe)

1 large egg
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbs granulated sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
¼ tsp salt
5 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled

About 6 lemon verbena leaves, finely chopped

Zest of 2 large lemons

1 cup of fresh blueberries, coated with a little flour

Extra cream for brushing

Turbinado sugar

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

2. Stir the egg and cream together in a small bowl.

3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl add the sugar, lemon zest, and lemon verbena leaves. Rub everything together with your fingers to bring out the lemon flavor. Stir in the sugar lemon mix with the flour.

4. Add the butter to the flour/lemon sugar mixture. Using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You will have some little butter clumps and some larger clumps-the size of peas.

5. Pour the egg and cream over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, comes together. It will be sticky. Don't over mix. Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, 8 to 10 times.

6. Carefully stir in the blueberries.

7. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Divide it in half. Working with one piece at a time, pat the dough into a rough circle that’s about 5 inches in diameter, cut it into wedges or use a cookie cutter and cut out the scones. I used a round cookie cutter. Brush the scones with cream and sprinkle Turbinado sugar on top.

8. Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes, or until their tops are golden brown. Transfer them to a rack and cool. These are best eaten warm and on the day they are made.

Recipe for Berry Scones

Is everyone ready for Easter? Any fun plans? We are going to see Wicked tomorrow! Yahoo! It FINALLY came to Salt Lake City! Josh bought the tickets almost a year ago, he is the best! I have never seen it so I am super excited. For Easter, we are going to the Dewey's to celebrate. Should be a fun filled weekend.

I always eat breakfast, it is my favorite meal of the day. I usually eat a Fiber One or another healthy cereal at my desk. Not the ideal situation, but it works:) On weekends I try to be a little more creative with my choices. I recently made these berry scones and they were a nice treat.

I love scones, I usually make Dorie's Cream Scones, but this time I tried a recipe from King Arthur Flour. I was intrigued by the yogurt in the recipe. I usually use cream or buttermilk, not yogurt.

The dough was a little different, not the typical scone dough. It was really dry. I tried not to mix it too much because you don't want to overmix when making scones. The dough wouldn't come together though, so I added a little more yogurt. That helped, but my dough was really colorful! I probably over mixed it. Oops! I liked how easy these were, I used an ice cream scoop to drop the dough onto my baking sheet. PLOP and you are done!

The scones baked up nicely. I loved the almond extract, lemon, and berry flavor combo. They were nice and blue too:) They didn't have the traditional scone feel though, they were more moist. I liked them, but not what I was expecting. I think they were a mix of muffins, scones, and biscuits? Is that possible?

If you are having company this weekend for breakfast or brunch, give these a try!

Berry Scones
Adapted from King Arthur

(Printable Recipe)

2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
1 cup frozen mixed berries
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt (I added about 2 more Tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons coarse sugar, for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or line with parchment.

Whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients till the mixture is unevenly crumbly; use your fingers, a pastry blender, or an electric mixer. Gently mix the blueberries with the dry ingredients.

Stir together the eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract, lemon zest or oil, and almond extract. Add to the dry ingredients and stir very gently, just until combined. The dough will be quite moist, like cookie dough.

Use a muffin scoop, jumbo cookie scoop, or 1/4-cup measure to scoop the dough onto the prepared sheet in scant 1/4-cupfuls, leaving about 2" between each. Brush each ball of dough with a bit of milk or cream, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake the scones for 20 to 24 minutes, or until lightly browned and a cake tester inserted into a scone comes out dry. Remove from the oven, and serve warm. To reheat, wrap loosely in aluminum foil, and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for about 8 to 10 minutes.
Yield: 12 scones

Lemon Glazed Berry Scones

I love making special breakfast treats on weekends. During the week I eat breakfast at work. I usually have a bowl of cereal or oatmeal. Don't get me wrong, I love cereal and oatmeal, but sometimes I want something special. Good thing we have Saturdays and Sundays:)

I recently tried a new scone recipe. We love scones at our house. I usually make one of Dorie's recipes, but this time I tried a more rustic scone from Tyler Florence. His recipe called for blueberries and an orange glaze, but I changed it up a bit.

I used frozen mixed berries, we have a huge bag in our freezer from Costco:) I also used lemon zest in the dough mix and did a lemon glaze. These scones were super easy to mix up! You just drop the dough onto the baking sheet too! You don't have to worry about cutting them into triangles, etc.

My berries juiced a little bit so the scones were colorful...pink, purple, blue! They were kind of pretty that way though! I loved all of the berries and the lemon glaze was a nice finishing touch! It made quite a few scones so I put some in the freezer. When we are in the mood for a treat I just heat them up in the oven!

Lemon Glazed Berry Scones

Adapted from Tyler Florence

2 cups unbleached flour, plus more for rolling berries
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar

Zest of one lemon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut in chunks
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 pint berries (I used mixed frozen berries)
Turbinado Sugar, for sprinkling on scones

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and zest; mix thoroughly. Cut in butter using 2 forks or a pastry blender. The butter pieces should be coated with flour and resemble crumbs.

In another bowl, mix buttermilk and egg together, and then add to the flour mixture. Mix just to incorporate, do not overwork the dough.
Roll berries in flour to coat, this will help prevent the fruit from sinking to the bottom of the scone when baked. Fold the blueberries into batter, being careful not to bruise. Drop large tablespoons of batter on an ungreased cookie sheet. I used my Silpat! Sprinkle scones with Turbinado sugar.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until brown. Cool before applying the lemon glaze.

Lemon Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 lemons, juiced and zested

To prepare Glaze: combine sugar, zest, and juice and whisk until smooth. Drizzle or brush on top of scones.

Pumpkin White Chocolate Scones

I know, I know, everyone has about had it with the pumpkin recipes, but I still have some in my fridge! I can't let it down, it wants to be a fall star too. So please bear with me while I share this scrumptious recipe that I spotted on Del Sisters Kitchen.

I made Pumpkin White Chocolate Scones. Hello!! These will get you out of the bed in the morning. They may not be the healthiest of breakfast items, but save the Wheaties for another day. Splurging once in awhile is A-Ok in my book. Plus, the pumpkin is healthy, right?? Ha!

The dough was easy to make and work with. I patted it out into a round circle and cut the scones into wedges. I brushed them with cream and sprinkled turbinado sugar on top for kicks. When they were done baking they also got a drizzle of spice glaze.

The scones were very tasty. I really liked the pumpkin and white chocolate combo. I might throw in some dried cranberries next time for color and sweetness.

Pumpkin White Chocolate Scones

Adapted from Del’s Sisters Kitchen

Scone Dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cream
Turbinado sugar for sprinkling the tops of the scones

Spice Glaze:
1c. powdered sugar
1/2t. cinnamon
1/8t. cloves
Sprinkle of nutmeg
Milk

Add as much milk until desired consistency. Drizzle or spread over scones.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place rack in middle of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. I use my hands! The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Stir in the white chocolate.

In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk, pumpkin puree and vanilla and then add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together. Do not over mix the dough.
Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches (3.75 cm) thick. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 3 pie-shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with the cream and sprinkle a little Turbinado sugar on top.

Place the baking sheet inside another baking sheet to prevent the bottoms of the scones from over browning. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and drizzle scones with the glaze.

Cranberry Orange Scones

We are finally moved into our new house. We got everything unloaded, now it is just a mess! Everything is still in boxes and thrown everywhere. I can't wait to get settled and organized but that wasn't going to happen last night.

Since I can't find my way to the oven yet, here is one of my favorite recipes...Dorie's Cream Scones. This is what I wish I could of made for breakfast:)

I tweak the recipe a bit...instead of currants I use Craisins and I add in lemon or orange zest. I also brush the tops with cream and sprinkle them with sugar.

This recipe is a staple at our house! The scones are flaky and tender...and the Craisins give them a sweet punch! So enjoy them for me...hopefully I will be able to bake soon!

Cream Scones

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's, Baking From My Home to Yours

• 1 large egg
• 2/3 cup cold heavy cream, plus extra cream to brush the tops
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
• 3/4 cup dried currants, roughly chopped (I use Craisins)
• Lemon Zest or Orange Zest
• Sugar in the Raw to sprinkle on top

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.
2. Stir the egg and cream together.
3. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. **I add in lemon or orange zest here.** Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You'll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between—and that's just right.
4. Pour the egg and cream over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be wet and sticky, comes together. Don't overdo it. [The recipe didn't say when to add the currants, or Craisins in my case, so I added them here.] Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, or turn it with a rubber spatula 8 to 10 times.
5. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Divide it in half. Working with one piece at a time, pat the dough into a rough circle that's about 5 inches in diameter, cut it into 6 wedges and place it on the baking sheet. **Sometimes I make them into round discs, see the picture. They are good both ways** [At this point, the scones can be frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight. Don't defrost before baking—just add about 2 minutes to the baking time.]
6. Before baking I brush the scones with cream and sprinkle them with the sugar. Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes, or until their tops are golden and firmish. Transfer them to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for them to cool to room temperature.

Serving: Bring to the table in a basket and serve with sweet butter and any jam.
Storing: These keep longer than baking-powder biscuits, but they are best the same day they're made. If you want to save them, wrap them airtight as soon as they cool to room temperature and freeze them for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the scones, reheat them in a 350-degree F oven.