So what's the big deal?

Scones. Why does that word strike fear into the heart of bakers? I had always shied away from making scones because I'd heard they were so difficult to make. Umm, what?

My Shasty pointed me to a little blog with two teenage sisters would enjoyed baking. I honestly don't remember the blog which was aggrivating because I wanted to use their recipe and I couldn't remember the name of their blog! When we chat we shoot each other different blog links non-stop. Anyway, I thought, geez, if these teenagers can do it, so can I. I sought out a basic cream scone recipe. Looked at several different and settled on a fairly bland sounding one so I could jazz it up some.

I had worked at a bakery in my late teens/early 20s and remember the scone being wildly popular with my early Saturday morning crew of upper-crust customers. We had lots of varieties from pecan to currant to blueberry. Everyone had a side of clotted cream with their scone. I don't own any clotted cream, nor did I see any at the store. What I did have was cream cheese, so I worked with what I had.
In my freezer I had a bag of frozen blueberries, so obviously my scones would have those in them. I also had 3 lovely lemons. Hmmmm, lemon and blueberry go nicely.

Sunny Blueberry Scones

2 C flour

1/4 C sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 C unsalted butter

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 C whipping cream

1 large egg, beaten

zest of two lemons

Filling:

1 Cup frozen blueberries (or fresh, dur)

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

2 T granulated sugar

zest of one lemon

1 T lemon juice

Cream together filling ingredients, except for blueberries, set aside.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut in butter. Your dough should resemble a coarse meal at this point. Combine wet ingredients (I just kinda stirred them all together in my big measuring cup, so as not to dirty another dish) and add to dry mixture. Knead it all together till it forms up in a ball. Knead a few more times. Divide dough in half. On a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet, form one of the balls into a circle, about 1/2 inch thick. Place the second ball on a sheet of waxed paper and press into a slightly larger (and will obviously be thinner) circle.

Spread filling onto first circle. Sprinkle blueberries on the cream cheese mixture. Lay the larger circle on top, and peel off the waxed paper. Press around the edges to seal. Cut the filled scone circle into how ever many pieces you want to have I think I did 12. Brush with extra cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.

Man were these delightful with a cup of coffee on the deck the other morning. I took half of my scones a few blocks over to my friend at work. I think they enjoyed them too. They didn't last too long anyway!

*I had no pictures of the process because I didn't know that I'd like these so well! Sorry!*

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P.S. It rained today....a lot. I actually saw a tornado forming in the sky. Scared the bejeebers out of me. We had at least 3 areas of "intense cloud rotation" over our area today. They all lined right up and passed over us. It was fun there for a while.

Here are my official rain totals for my house:

Middle of yard: water to tops of my feet

Back of property: ankle deep water. This area is a common place for my children to strip down nekkid and splash in any accumulated water.

Should I sent these official totals in to the weather channel?