Breakfast for a King

Happy New Year!

This morning I woke up feeling refreshed, and after checking my e-mail this morning, I decided I needed to make a special breakfast to start off the new year. It's been a long while since I've made a batch of scones. Once upon a time, they were a Thanksgiving tradition for us. Mid-afternoon, while waiting for dinner to cook, and usually over a board game or something, we'd break out scones and tea. After a few years, it occurred to us that scones are on the heavy side for a pre-turkey day snackie. The scones haven't made many appearances since then, though I do think of them often.

Scones are extremely easy to make, and worthy of a holiday breakfast. Flour and leavening are combined with sweet spices before cold butter is cut in, and then a binder is added. I prefer my scones to be made with dried cranberries and buttermilk, but you can certainly use plain milk and any dried fruit you like. Snipped apricots work really well, as do dried currants, raisins, and occasionally I do add some chopped walnuts as well. Just before baking, I brush the scones with a beaten egg white before sprinkling with turbinado sugar. You can most certainly use plain sugar, but I personally love the larger grains of turbinado sugar.

I usually serve them with some sweet butter or some jam. Today I happened to have a jar of Meyer Lemon Cream that has been begging for scones to be made. It was truly a match made in heaven, which makes me think that fruit butters and fruit curds are essential for a good scone breakfast. You can find my recipe for Raisin Scones in the Recipe Trove. As an aside, I managed to add 73 recipes to the trove last year. That's not too bad, considering that many recipes I still posted here on Tummy Treasure.