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Dorie Greenspan
New book: COOKING WITH DORIE: Sweet, Salty and Simple by Dorie Greenspan
Recipe:
Honey-apple and spelled glazed scones
These are the scones for that instant you feel yourself falling through the air. They have apples, honey and tangerine, seasonal flavors, and the surprise addition of a little spelled, a wheat flour that stains their interiors. They are light in texture, and because they are only slightly sweet, they can take on a layer of frosting. My choice is a simple icing sugar icing, brushed with the scones out of the oven. While the frosting is wet, I sometimes sprinkle the tops with a few grains of bee pollen. Pollen is optional, but its slight sweetness and chewiness finishes scones well.
The dough for these is very sticky, so sticky that you may want to make scones rather than patties of dough into a disc and cut into quarters. It is a good option. Whatever you do, don’t decide the dough needs more flour – it doesn’t! All this grip turns into a light and airy crumb.
Makes 12 snowball-shaped scones or 8 wedge-shaped scones
2 cups (272 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (75 grams) spelled flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 small tangerine, a clementine or 1/2 orange
3/4 stick (6 tbsp; 3 ounces; 85 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 medium apple, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
1/4 cup (60 mL) honey
1 large cold egg
3/4 cup (180 mL) cold milk
1/2 cup (60 grams) icing sugar, for icing
About 1 tablespoon of milk, for the frosting
About 1 teaspoon of bee pollen, for finishing (see summary; optional)
Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
In a large bowl, combine the two flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Finely grate the zest of the tangerine, clementine or orange in the bowl and whisk this as well – hold the fruit. Spread the chunks of cold butter over the flour, reach out and use your fingers to crush and squeeze and crush the butter into the flour. (You can do this with a cookie cutter, but it’s really easier and faster to use your fingers.) Keep mixing the dry ingredients and crushing the butter until you’ve broken it into flour-coated pieces as small as cornflakes and as large as peas. Add the apple to the bowl and stir until coated with flour. Pour over the honey and with a fork, give the mixture a few turns. You don’t have to be thorough now.
Whisk the egg and milk together, squeeze the juice from the citrus zest and mix it with the milk. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients and using the fork, mix, turn and stir until the flour is moistened. With your hands, gently – and sparingly – squeeze and knead the dough just enough to pull it into a ball. It is futile (and unnecessary) to expect a smooth, neat dough package because the dough is damp and very sticky.
Now you have a choice. If you want to make scones, choose an ice cream scoop – a 1/4 cup capacity is good – and drop 12 servings of dough on the baking sheet. If you want to make wedge-shaped scones, flip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into a circle about 6 1/2 inches in diameter and 1 inch high (height is more important than diameter. here). Sprinkle the top with flour. Using a scraper or a chef’s knife, cut the dough into quarters then cut each quarter in half to obtain 8 quarters. Carefully transfer them to the baking sheet. (At this point, you can freeze the scones and wrap them tightly once they are solid. To bake, place the frozen scones on a lined baking sheet and let them sit at room temperature while you preheat the oven. Scones may require a minute or more of cooking time.)
Bake the scones for 18 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top and bottom. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and make the frosting.
To make the frosting, put the sugar in a medium bowl and add the milk little by little, stirring with a small spatula or spoon. Use a little less milk or add more – it’s hard to give an accurate measurement – and keep stirring until you get a glossy frosting that slowly falls off the tip of your spoon.
Spread some frosting on each scone (using a silicone brush or a small offset spatula for this job) and if desired, sprinkle some bee pollen while the frosting is wet . Serve as soon as the frosting dries or transfer the scones to a wire rack and serve within 3 to 4 hours. You can wait longer, but scones are best as close to coming out of the oven as possible.
Storage: They are better the day they are made.
Excerpt from BAKING WITH DORIE: Sweet, Salty, & Simple © 2021 by Dorie Greenspan. Photograph © 2021 by Mark Weinberg. Reproduced with permission from Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
