Monday, February 18, 2008

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!

23 comments:

Uma said...

I wish I was there to eat those lovely scones. I am a fan of scones too!

Mythreyee said...

A treat that's eggless. Thanks for sharing.

Red Chillies said...

I look for eggless options too. Looks wonderful

Cham said...

Love the second picture, looks Yummy Kalai :)

EC said...

Good eggless recipe..thanks for sharing it

sra said...

I don't eat too many cakes but when I do, I'll look for this!

Sig said...

ginger and orange, that is a lovely flavor combo... yumm...

BTW glad to know that you loved the bitter gourd theeyal... thanks for the feedback... :)

Lavanya Raj said...

iam drooling here kalai..those orange marmalade are tempting me.
nice post.

Anonymous said...

Wow...I can almost smell the oranges here :) Great recipe.Thanks for visiting my blog.

FH said...

YUM! I love Oranges and Lemons in scones, good one!:)

Kalai said...

Uma, I'll send you some next time! :)

Mythreyee, my pleasure! Although I do use eggs in baking often, there was no difference in taste or texture in these. They were great! :)

Red Chillies, thanks a lot! :)

Cham, thank you. Yeah, the orange marmalade really took them over the top! :)

Easycrafts, hope you try it and like it! :)

Kalai said...

Sra, please do. My husband has such a sweet tooth, so he's always looking for something! :)

Sig, the ginger and orange were beautiful together! Thank you for the awesome recipe, girl! :)

Lavanya, do try them out. You will like them! :)

Homecooked, thanks for the kind words. I'll be looking at your future posts, too! :)

Ashakka, I love any citrus in baking, too! :)

Laavanya said...

I like the flavours going in.. lovely. Didn't take to scones as much as I thought I would... but maybe I ought to give it another shot.

Mansi said...

those look so pretty Kalai! and I made scones too:) will post them soon! loved yours:)

Sagari said...

wonderfulllll scones kalai

Revathi said...

orange and ginger are really classy comboo!!!

Kalai said...

Laavanya, thank you. These are pretty easy and quick if you want to give scones another chance! :)

Mansi, can't wait to see your scones! :)

Sagari, thanks so much! :)

Revathi, welcome to my blog. Thanks for the compliment! :)

Dhivya said...

wow lovely entry kalai...never heard abt htis one...orange and ginger are really nice comboo

Pravs said...

nice combination of ingredients and eggless too...love this recipe !

Kalai said...

Dhivya, you are so right! I didn't expect ginger and orange to go together so well! :)

Pravs, thanks so much, girl. Do try them sometime! :)

chemcookit said...

Dear Kalai,
these are wonderful! Thanks a lot for taking part to the event!

chemcookit said...

PS - I didn't find any email from you, though :( I don't know what's going on in my email account, I thought it was working. I did see this entry now, though, so don't worry. But if you want to try to send me the email again, I'll be relieved if I actually get it.. chemcookitATgmailDOTcom
Thanks!

Kalai said...

Thanks, Marta! Looking forward to the roundup! :)