Mini Cranberry Scone

After the long rainy days early this week, here it is~ the cold winter!
I guess it is a perfect time to bake scones and enjoy them with a cup of tea. I had about a cup of dried cranberries left from the Thanksgiving dinner, and baked cranberry scones. The scones that I bake are "mini" scones - small size makes them easy to eat, quick to bake, and just cute to look at. ;)


Mini Cranberry Scone
(Yield: about 40 mini scones/ Cooking time: 1.5 hours*)
* 1.5 hours include dough resting time of 1 hour.


Ingredients:
+ 3 cups all-purpose flour
+ 1/3 cup white sugar
+ 3/4 tsp salt
+ 1 Tbsp baking powder

+ 4oz cold butter (one stick), small dice
+ 1 cup dried cranberry*
* It could be any dried fruits or chopped nuts to make other than cranberry scones.

+ 2 eggs
+ 2 tsp vanilla extract
+ 2/3 cup half and half (+ 1 Tbsp for brushing)*
* You can use half heavy cream and half milk or just milk.




Procedures:
1. Mix all dry ingredients (flour, white sugar, salt and baking powder).


2. Add small diced icy butter to the dry ingredients, and mix using hand, crushing the icy butter cube with fingers and incorporating with dry ingredients.




3. Mix the dry ingredietns and butter until you see some small lentil size chunks of butter. It is okay to have some larger chunks.


4. Add dried cranberries to #3.


5. Mix wet ingredients (eggs, half & half and vanilla extract) well in a bowl.


6. Pour the wet ingredients into dry a bowl with ingredients + butter mix.


7. Mix all the ingredients until the dough is homogeneous. The dough should be wet and sticky. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and place in a freezer for an hour until the dough hardens and is easy to handle.


8. Preheat oven to 420°F (215°C).

9. Roll the dough to ~3/4"(2cm) thickness.


10. Using a 1.5" (~4cm) cookie cutter, cut out the dough and place in a parchment-lined (or silpat-lined) baking sheet.


11. Brush top of each dough with half & half or whole milk. This helps the top of scone become shiny and golden brown. Also, moistening the outer layer of the dough will make the scone rise more by delaying the formation of crust.


12. Bake the scone at the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the top is golden brown.


13. Cool the scones over cooling rack.


14. You can serve the scones when they are still warm, or reheat in toast oven when you serve.


Enjoy your afternoon tea time with warm scones ~.