Cherry Orange Scones with White Chocolate Glaze

I don’t know about you, but I feel like scones are the classiest of the morning pastries. “Yes, please, I would some sugar for my English breakfast tea to accompany scones/crumpets” sounds so elegant versus “Gee, I’m super late for school again so I’m stuffin’ a muffin in my mouth.”

Actually, I had joined the 8 am “stream team” towards the end of this semester, so the latter sentence doesn’t happen too often anymore. Streaming, for my non medical student readers, means that the professors’ lectures are recorded and you can play them anytime, anywhere, (and most importantly, at any speed) you want. The lecture halls are so empty now as the ranks fall one by one for the comforts of lectures playing 2x speed at home in your PJs…ah, the benefits and tragedies of technology.

 The ability to sleep in a little and eat breakfast at leisure while reading notes is admittedly very, very nice. Buuuut, I still count myself as the 15% of devout class goers, since 9 am is still early too, hehe.

I made these for the first year babies of my friend Janet, adapting Ina Garten’s amazing recipe. Janet baked these along with me; this hipster health nut girl basically eats raw fruits and veggies for all her meals, so getting her into the kitchen is pretty good.

Ingredients
SCONES:
4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 oranges, zested
3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream (or milk)
1 cup dried cherries
1 egg beaten, for egg wash

GLAZE:
1/8 cup milk
1/3 cup, white chocolate (finely chopped)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In the bowl, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter; using two knives, cut the butter until the butter is the size of peas.

Whisk the eggs and heavy cream/milk in another bowl and pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy! Combine the dried cranberries and 1/4 cup of flour.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and quickly knead and divide it into 4 balls. Chill for 1/2 hour (I put mine in the freezer) until cold, so dough is easier to handle.

Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. Allow the scones to cool.

For the glaze, microwave the milk until very hot. Pour over the white chocolate and stir until smooth. using a fork, drizzle glaze over scones.