There's nothing better on a chilly, overcast Saturday morning than a hot cup of tea with a scone. I was able to enjoy exactly that this Saturday. Here's another recipe from my roomie's new cookbook. I wasn't able to find dried currants but I did happen to get dried blueberries--something I'd never noticed before. I found them in the bulk foods section at the local grocery store. They are very much like dried currants in size and consistency and I thought they would make a fine substitute. In fact, don't be afraid to switch out the currants for any dried fruit your heart desires or don't use any dried fruit at all if you don't want any.

Buttermilk Scones with Dried Currants
From Once Upon a Tart...Soups, Salads, Muffins, and More by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup cold buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup dried currants (or dried fruit of your choice)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Dump the dry ingredients into the bowl of your food processor fitted with a metal blade, and pulse a few times to mix.
• Add the cubed butter to the bowl and run the food processor for 15 seconds. Switch to pulse and continue pulsing until there are no chunks of butter left and the mixture looks like moist crumbs.
• Remove the blade from the food processor and dump the crumbs into a large bowl.
• In another small bowl, whisk the eggs to break up the yolks.
• Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla.
• Stir in the currants.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour-butter crumbs and stir with a wooden spoon. It will be dry at first, and you may think there is too much flour, but keep mixing and it will come together. Stop as soon as no flour is visible. You don't want to work the dough a moment longer than necessary.
• Use a 1/2 cup measuring cup or your hand (eyeballing for size) to scoop the batter out and plop in onto the baking sheet leaving 2 inches between the scones.
• Bake the scones for 25 - 30 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and a small knife or toothpick comes out clean.
• Cool for a few mminutes, serve warm or room temperature.

About this recipe: overall I would say this is a more advanced-beginner scone. I don't know why exactly, it just seems like it is. First off, you need a food processor, so says the recipe. I think you could get away with using a pastry cutter if you take the time to cut the butter in very finely. Using a food processor makes the prep time quick and easy even if it does wake up the roomie from her sound slumber.

The description of the mixture seeming too dry when you add the wet but to perservere and it will come together was spot on.

[I live at high altitude and have finally taken the time to learn more about how to adjust recipes for this. I could find no tried-and-true method, only different things to try and the why behind and some advice that you really just have to try different things with different recipes. Among the advice: add 3 - 4 tablespoons more liquid to offset flour that is drier up here. Decrease the amount of baking powder by 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon so that your baked item doesn't rise too quickly and then fall. And finally, one old-time cookbook recommends adding an extra egg to your recipes to increase stability. I don't have too much trouble with falling cakes, but sometimes they do. My biggest problem is with cookies. The only cookies I've made since I've lived here that weren't as flat as a pancake and crispy are oatmeal cookies. I can't make a moist chocolate chip cookie to save my life (although, those double-chocolate chip cookies did turn out pretty moist).]

I added slightly more liquid to offset the dryness and I think that helped. My dough still seemed dry at first but did come together with a little more stirring. I used a 1/2 cup measuring cup to drop my scones onto my cookie sheet. I ran out of parchment so I went without telling myself I'd be very careful to watch the temperature and the scones so the bottoms didn't burn. My vigilance paid off. I only had to bake them for 20 minutes and they were perfectly done.

I halved the recipe and got 6 generously sized scones.

The happy result was a very nice cake-like scone. These scones are far sweeter than other's I've made even though as per usual I was stingy on the sugar. The dried blueberries were a delightful sweet and a bit chewy compliment. I really enjoyed the flavor of both the scone base and dried blueberries together very much. If you use currants, they have a more tart flavor but I can imagine that they would also work very well. A great scone to add to the list!