White Chocolate Cherry Scones
Lightly-sweetened and tender scones with slightly crisp edges, loaded with white chocolate chips and fresh roasted cherries.
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 18 minutes
- Yield: 8 scones 1x
Ingredients
- 6 7/8 ounces (1 1/4 cups) pitted bing cherries, cut into 1/5ths
- 1 3/4 ounces (1/4 cup) granulated sugar, divided
- 4 1/4 ounces (1/2 cup) milk (preferably whole milk)
- 2 1/8 ounces (1/4 cup) heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 9 1/2 ounces (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour, spoon and level*
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen and cut into small cubes
- 3 ounces (1/2 cup) white chocolate baking chips
- heavy cream, for brushing (about 2 tablespoons)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425ºF.
- In a fairly small, oven-safe dish, toss chopped cherries with 1 tablespoon granulated sugar. Roast in preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until cherries have released some of their juices and are fragrant. Strain cherries from juices and transfer to a container to cool in refrigerator.** Reserve juices for another use. Once cherries have cooled, place in freezer while preparing scone dough.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine milk, cream, and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Place in freezer while continuing with dough.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the cubed butter and cut in with a pastry cutter until no large pieces remain. Add white chocolate chips and cherries and toss in until well-dispersed and coated in flour mixture. Add the cold liquids in two parts, folding in just until the dough is moistened but not yet cohesive. It will be somewhat crumbly.
- Turn dough out onto prepared baking sheet, crumbs and all. Use hands to gently clump dough together just enough to form it into a 1" thick round.*** Brush top and sides with cream and place in the freezer to chill for 1 hour.
- Towards the end of the chilling period, preheat oven to 400ºF. Remove scones from freezer and use a bench scraper or knife to cut the dough into 8 triangles, like you would cut a pizza. Separate the scones out on the baking sheet.
- Bake scones in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, just until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean.****
Notes
*For this recipe, if you aren't weighing your flour, it's really important that you measure with the spoon-and-level method. Otherwise, you'll almost certainly use too much and the scones won't turn out right.
**To speed up the process of cooling the roasted cherries, spread them out in the container so they have more surface area for cooling.
***It will initially seem like the scones need more liquid, but if you've measured all your ingredients accurately (preferably by weight), the dough will come together. Add a bit more liquid only if you feel it's absolutely necessary.
****While these scones will certainly still taste good the next day, they're always best eaten freshly baked!