Sheltering in place is the perfect time to do a pantry clean-out and bake with what I’ve got! # 166: Lemon Blueberry Scones

I hope you’re all healthy and having fun rediscovering the joys of staying home! We pay a lot for our apartments but spend most of our time out and about. So I guess now we’re getting our money’s worth? Hmm, not the best silver lining but I’m trying. Very thankful to have a job I can do virtually, and a lovely apartment to work-from-home in!

Also happy belated spring equinox! I’ve been walking around my neighborhood more this past week and it’s like a flower explosion.

Judging from the empty flour shelves at Safeway, lots of people are planning to flex their baking muscles in the next few weeks. I’m all about comfort baking when I’m anxious, and scones might just be the definition of comfort. Nothing quite like a warm blueberry scone to brighten your day!

I’ve also been wanting to try the folded, or layered, scones that Thida Bevington posted about recently. Inspired by the flaky layers of a buttery biscuit, she added in a fun texture to the classic lump scone.

The frozen blueberries I used in the dough added a bit more moisture than I intended so my scones didn’t have the super distinct layers that hers did. But you can kinda see a faint swirl and lemon blueberry is the best combo, so no regrets.

My mom’s friend had extra meyer lemons from her tree, so they played a starring role in this bake. Love how orange they are!

I used a mixture of super cool butters – it’s like a mosaic butter colors. It’s a French butter (Isigny Sainte-Mère), a buffalo milk butter and an 85% American butter. I went on a super long butter tangent in my sourdough bread post, so if you’re a butter geek, check it out!

I got these three butters to do a “tasting,” which was just a fabulous excuse to eat a ton of bread and butter. Here’s the results:

• The buffalo milk butter is the super white one (the beta-carotene is hiding) and it didn’t have a super distinct flavor. Can’t say that I’d buy it again, to be honest. Maybe it was the color or the super soft texture, but it reminded me a bit of shortening.
• The Isigny Sainte-Mère was just as mineral-y as I thought it would be! It almost tasted saltier than normal salted butter. Kinda intense just on bread, but added a fun element to a buttercream I made last week.
• The 85% American butter was my fave, but I’m biased. Having grown up on salted cow butter, it’s the flavor I expect and compare everything else to!

Sandy beach in a bowl or future scones?

Zesting lemons gives off a little cloud of lemon-scented perfume. It compliments my purple-stained fingers from accidentally touching the frozen blueberries. Oops.

Whisked the egg into the milk so it would more easily mix into the butter/flour sand.

Oh hello! You clean up nicely.

It was veryyy sticky – don’t be scared to use a hefty sprinkling of flour!

I used a bench scraper to roll it into a happy swirl.

Blue cheese or scones? You decide. Pre-sauna, it’s honestly hard to tell the difference. Amazing what an oven can do!

I did a milk wash on all of them, and sprinkled of sparkly sugar on half of them. Experiment results: add the sugar! It gives them a nice crunch and a fun look.

Happy munching!

Recipe from Thida Bevington’s instagram stories – you’ll find it in her highlights!