Family Chefmate: Cranberry Scones

One of my families favorite Christmas traditions is to have high tea. The kids love getting dressed up and going to a special hotel to have high tea. One bakery item that is at every high tea are mouth watering scones made with real cream and butter. My family likes to practice this ritual of high tea at home during the Christmas holiday. Today the kids decided that we needed to have high tea so my daughter and I set off to make Christmas cranberry scones. This recipe was taken from the cooking network sight under Alton Brown. I altered the recipe by using whole wheat pastry flour for regular white flour and used all butter instead of shortening. I doubled the recipe so I could freeze some of the scones for Christmas morning. If you want to freeze the dough just cut out the scones and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze them until you are ready to bake them.

Cranberry Scones:

Pre-heat the oven: 375 degrees
Makes 12 scones

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup cream
1 egg
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup water

In a large bowl, place the whole wheat pastry dough, baking powder, salt and sugar and mix together. Add the cold butter pieces to the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry knife or your fingers. The flour mixture should resemble small pea size shapes. Mix the cream and the egg together and then add them to the flour mixture. In a small microwaveable bowl add the 1/2 cup dried cranberries with 1/2 cup water. Heat the cranberries and water in the microwave for 1 minute. Let the cranberries absorb the hot water for 5 minutes then drain the water off the cranberries. Add the drained cranberries to the scone batter and mix together. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll the dough out with a rolling pin. The dough will be sticky so make sure everything is well floured. Roll the dough out and cut them with either a biscuit cutter or Christmas cookie cutters (I used a Christmas tree and a star cutter). Bake the scones on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. The scones should be golden brown when they are finished. Remember is you want to freeze some of the scones just freeze the scones on a parchment lined cookie sheet until you are ready to bake them.

Cranberry Scone Batter