Archive for August, 2020

Roasted Peach Scones

Monday, August 31st, 2020

Peach season is in full swing around here, and I am enjoying the bounty. Peaches seem to sum up this season of the year, lush and golden. Of course, my favorite way to use peaches is just to eat them … preferably leaning over the sink so the juices don’t fly everywhere.

I do enjoy cooking with them as well, however. I never made peach scones until this year. I don’t like to use really wet fruit my scones. A recent newsletter from King Arthur Flour gave me the idea of roasting peaches for scones … so I decided to try peach scones that way.

Here is my (now) tried and true method.

The Scones

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups chopped peaches (about 2 large peaches), skins on, or even more if you want lots of peaches in your scones
1/2 cup sugar plus a bit more as needed for sprinkling
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
optional flavoring to taste: 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon dried ginger, or 1 teaspoon chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 egg
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Instructions:

First, roast the peaches. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper or nonstick aluminum foil. Spread the peach pieces out on the prepared cookie sheet.

Roast the peaches for 10 minutes; then stir them and roast them for another 10 minutes (but check them after 5 minutes just in case they are sticking or starting to blacken).

Remove the peaches from the pan (they will be wet so this is a sort of scraping process) and let them cool before adding them to the scone dough.

For the scones, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 baking sheets or line them with parchment. Combine the sugar, the flour, the baking powder, the baking soda, and the salt. Stir in an optional flavoring if you wish. Cut in the butter, but be careful not to overmix. Stir the fruit into this mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg, the buttermilk, and the vanilla or almond extract. Add the peach mixture and blend briefly. Drop the batter in clumps onto the baking sheets. You may either make large scones (you’ll end up with 6 to 8 of them) or smallish ones (12 to 16).

Sprinkle additional sugar on top for added flavor and crunch. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes, depending on size.