This recipe was printed in the NYTimes by Dorie Greenspan. It is from Joanne Chang’s Flour Bakery + Café in Boston. Anyone who follows Dorie knows that her recipes are written in such detail they are fool proof.
If you’ve had the chance to eat any of Chang’s baked goods from one of her nine well known Flour bakeries in Boston/Cambridge, you know that everything she makes is special. This recipe with her unique technique for mixing in the butter in two stages makes for an incredibly tender, flaky scone.
If you have a mixer with a paddle attachment, the entire recipe can be made with that attachment. The technique is a little different from most scones. Rather than mix all the butter into the flour until it is the size of peas, half is mixed in until incorporated, like sand, the the other half is only mixed in for 10 seconds. That allows for most of the cubes to remain whole, which means lots of flaky batter with dots of melted butter in the baked scones. They are so delectable, you won’t need to serve them with more butter.
Before I made them, I thought that a glaze of powdered sugar blended with maple syrup would be too sweet. But not to worry. The scones aren’t very sweet, so the glaze blends into the batter perfectly.
The whole-wheat flour mixed with the all-purpose flour is paramount. It really adds a wonderful depth of flavor to the scones.
Although nothing beats a just baked warm scone from the oven, these reheat beautifully, even two days later.
Be sure to leave plenty of room between the scoops for the scones to expand. Eight to a half-sheet are perfect.
SCONES
1 ⅔ cups/240 grams whole-wheat flour
1 cup/130 grams all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¾ cup/170 grams unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), cold, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
½ cup/120 grams crème fraîche, Greek yogurt or sour cream, at room temperature
½ cup/120 milliliters maple syrup
⅓ cup/80 milliliters buttermilk, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 cup/125 grams fresh blueberries
GLAZE
½ cup/60 grams confectioners’ sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons maple syrup
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, briefly mix both flours, the baking powder, baking soda and salt on low speed. Add half the butter and paddle until fully mixed into the flour, 2 to 3 minutes. (This will coat the flour with butter so the scones are tender.)
Add the remaining butter to the bowl of the stand mixer. Pulse the mixer three or four times to mix the pieces into the dough while keeping them whole. (This step will give you small pieces of butter in the dough, which will help the scones be a bit flaky.)
In a medium bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche, maple syrup, buttermilk and yolk until thoroughly mixed. Stir in the blueberries. With the mixer on low, pour the blueberry mixture into the flour mixture, and paddle on low for about 10 seconds to get some of the liquid mixed into the flour. Stop the mixer, and mix the rest of the loose flour into the dough by hand: Gather and lift the dough with your hands and turn it over in the bowl several times until all the loose flour is mixed in. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap it well and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or for up to 1 day. (This gives the flour time to fully absorb the liquid.)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and position a rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using a 1/2-cup measuring cup or ice cream scoop, scoop out 8 mounds of chilled dough, and place them on the baking sheet a few inches apart. Bake scones for 35 to 45 minutes, rotating the baking sheet midway through the baking time, until the scones are evenly golden brown and firm when you press them.
While the scones are baking, make the glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar and enough maple syrup to make a thick, spreadable glaze. Use immediately, or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. Rewhisk before using.
As soon as you remove the scones from the oven, use a pastry brush to brush them with the glaze while they’re warm. Let cool on the baking sheet for 30 minutes, then serve.
