Mini Orange Scones

My husband happened to be working from home last week. He loves sweets, so I was trying to find something quick and easy to make for him as a tea time snack. I had a craving for scones and found a recipe for mini orange scones in my Pillsbury's "Complete Book of Baking" book.

It served as a great springboard for me. I decided to use raisins instead of mini chocolate chips (I didn't have them on hand), and added some ground ginger to the dough. The pictures probably don't convey this, but the end product was absolutely lip-smackingly good! I'm not going to pretend that these are very healthy, but they're great for a treat. My husband was very happy to have these! :)




Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Ground ginger - 1/2 tsp (more or less according to your taste)
Butter - 1/3 cup, cut into chunks
Orange juice - 1/3 cup (the juice of 1 softball sized orange)
Milk - 1/3 cup
Orange zest, grated - zest from 1 orange
Raisins - 1/2 cup

Topping:

Sugar - 3 tbsp (I only needed about half of this)
Cardamom - Seeds of 3 pods powdered

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, ground ginger). Mix well with fork or whisk.

3. Add butter to this and break into bits using fork or your fingers. Combine well with the dry ingredients so that the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

4. Add the raisins and toss lightly. Then, add the orange juice, milk, and orange zest.

5. Stir gently just to moisten the dry ingredients.

6. Drop by teasponfuls (I just used a mini ice cream scoop) onto prepared cookie sheets.

7. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over the scones.

8. Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets.

Makes about 30 scones.

They taste great warm with orange marmalade and reheat well, too!

warm scone with orange marmalade :)

Loved these so much, I'm sending these to Marta of An Italian in the US for her fresh produce of the month - orange event!