Cranberry Lemon Scones

Wow... what crazy several months have been for me - dealing with Arthur, Porgy's new health issue, crazy obnoxious neighbors moving in upstairs AND trying to find a new (and better) job. Fortunately, things finally started to settle down in the past week so I decided to restart this cook-and-blog thingy again. And what could be a better way to get back to the swing of things than by making Ina Garten's Cranberry Scones. I've done them before and they turned out really well. This time, I decided to use lemon zest instead of orange zest and doubled the recipe to make 20 large scones because I wanted to give some to Mo-Fo's family.


Ingredients:
nocoupons4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
zest of 2 lemons
3/4 pound (3 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream
2 cup dried cranberries
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoonsmilk, for egg wash
1/8 cup raw (turbinado) sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• In the bowl, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and the zest.
• Add the cold butter and mix with a hand mixer until the butter is the size of peas.
• Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture and mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy and sticky.
• Add the dried cranberries to the dough, and fold in until blended. Careful not to over work the dough.
• Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and knead the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough.
• Roll the dough into a log and cut triangles of dough.
• Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or silpat.
• Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with raw sugar, and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked.
• The scones will be firm to the touch.

PS: We used a loaner Nikon D80 SLR digital camera to take this picture and the quality is so much better than our Canon point and shoot camera.