Easy Cranberry Walnut Scones

Scones are a special treat that are easy to make, don't need a lot of special ingredients, and versatile. The basic ingredients can be found in nearly every kitchen pantry.

You can add or leave out almost anything you want.

They can be topped with a simple icing or left commando.

Let's get started!

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

You could make scones with just the basic ingredients, but, in my opinion, they wouldn't be much more than a glorified biscuit.

The basic ingredients are:

2c All Purpose flour

2 tbsp white sugar

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 c cold Butter

3/4 c Buttermilk

The add in's are: (Almost anything you want.)

1 tbsp Lemon Zest

3/4 c Chopped Walnuts

1/2 c Dried Cranberries

You can switch out any kind of nuts that you like, or leave them out entirely. Same goes for the the berries.

The Scones are topped with:

2 tbsp Buttermilk

2 tbsp Sugar

2 tbsp Chopped Walnuts

As with the nuts and berries, the toppings can be left off, or use your imagination.

Start with the dry ingredients.

In a fairly large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, Baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Go ahead and throw in the lemon zest at this point.

Next, add the cold butter cubes and cut in with a pastry cutter. Cut the mixture until it looks grainy. The butter needs to be cold so that it will stay in little butter grains in the mixture and help make the scones a little flakier.

Now add the nuts and berries and lightly mix. This just helps get these ingredients spread evenly through out the dough.

Last but not least...

Pour in the buttermilk.

Mix in the butter milk in with a fork as best as you can. All of the dry ingredients may not incorporate into the dough at this point. Don't worry about it, that'll be taken care of in the next step.

Now we take care of those un-mixed ingredients.

Sprinkle a little flour over a clean counter and roll out the dough out on top.

Using your hands,(it helps to dust your hands with flour first.), finish incorporating the mixture by lightly kneading the dough by simply folding it over itself a few times. A couple of minutes should do it.

Be careful not to over knead the dough, we want ti try to leave as many of those little butter balls intact as we can.

Take a second to get a cookie sheet ready with a light coating of grease. I like to use basic vegetable shortening.

Now lightly press the dough into a flat round pie.

With a sharp knife, cut the pie into halves until you have 8 equal pieces and gently place on greased cookie sheet leaving a good space between the pieces.

Time for the goodies.

Wad up a paper towel softly brush on the remaining 2 tbsp of buttermilk. You don't have to use it all, just get a nice even coat on each piece.

Same with the remaining sugar and nuts, except that you will want to use all of these.

Now to turn sticky lumps of dough into little slices of breakfast heaven.

Place cookie sheet onto the middle rack of the pre-heated oven.

Set timer for 15 minutes. Check scones and add a little more time if needed until golden.

When they get to the golden shade of your hearts desire, remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes

While scones are cooling, set the table, get the paper and........

Dig in!!!

I hope you try and enjoy these. We don't make them often, but when we do it is a real treat.