Cool summer breezes

Soak in the cool breezes of early summer sitting on a porch or picnic table with the fruity sweetness of freshly picked strawberries, the tang of lemon, and the subtle nutty crunch of black poppy seeds in these scones. Strawberries are at packed with flavor at this time of the year.

Share these with Iced tea, Arnold Palmers, or a cool pitcher of lemonade and make a new summer tradition.

Step by step instructions

Freeze the strawberries:

To keep the strawberries from releasing their juices too early in the bake, it’s important to freeze them before adding them to the scone mixture. You can use either frozen or fresh strawberries. Either way, prepare and freeze them before you start making the scones.

If using frozen strawberries, cut the red portions into 1/4″ pieces. Try to avoid using the white portions inside the strawberries. The flavor is all in the red. Put the cut pieces in a plastic container in your freezer.

For fresh strawberries, also cut the red portions into 1/4″ pieces and put them in a plastic container. Lightly mush the pieces with a fork, add a drop or two of lemon juice and a pinch of salt, and stir them together. Place the container in your freezer.

After 15 minutes, take out the container and stir the strawberries making sure they’re not sticking together. Do this again after you put the scones in the oven.

Blend the wet ingredients:

Blend the milk, extract, and egg together thoroughly using a milk frother or blender. Transfer the ingredients to a squeeze bottle and put it in your refrigerator to cool until you combine the wet and dry ingredients.

TIP: If you’re making a second batch to cook or freeze, blend the wet ingredients for both batches and place them in separate squeeze bottles.

Combine the dry ingredients:

Add all of the dry ingredients, flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, dried or fresh lemon zest, and poppy seeds to a large mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Slice the butter into chunks:

Slice the butter into chunks by cutting the length of a stick of butter you’re using in half along its long side, flip it on its side, and slice it again in half. Then cut the long side in half and each half into quarters. Mix the butter chunks into the dry ingredients.

Cut the butter into the dry ingredients:

Use a butter cutter to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until they are about the size of peas.

TIP: Slightly larger chunks create a crunchier scone, leaving bigger gaps in the crumb when they melt.

Put the dry ingredients in your freezer for 15 minutes and preheat the oven to 400°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients:

After 15 minutes, remove the bowl with the dry ingredients from the freezer and place it on a sticky pad. A sticky pad makes this step go faster by keeping the bowl still while stirring in the wet ingredients. You may have to rub the bottom of the bowl to remove any ice before putting it on the sticky pad.

Remove the squeeze bottle with the wet ingredients from the refrigerator. Slowly combine the wet and dry ingredients by squirting a thin line with the squeeze bottle and rapidly stirring it in with the tines of a large (serving) fork. This MUST BE DONE BY HAND. You don’t want to create a mix or dough. You want to wet the dry ingredients to keep them in pea-sized clusters.

When the dry ingredients start to look wet, use the tines to pull the moist ingredients to one side. This will expose the drier ingredients below. Use smaller squirts from the squeeze bottle onto the dry ingredients and stir faster with the tines. When no dry ingredients are left, stop adding liquid.

Take the frozen strawberries out of your freezer and sprinkle half of them over the dough and thoroughly mix it with the tines of your large fork.

Sprinkle the other half of the frozen strawberries over the dough and thoroughly mix it again with the tines.

Form the dough:

Start to form the dough. Gently press it down and fold it a few times until it forms one log. Fold the log in half and move it to a silicone mat.

It’s easiest to form the dough using a 7” cake ring. Press the dough from the center outward until the dough fills the ring. Swirl the ring around the dough to give it a better edge. Then remove the ring.

If forming by hand, press the flat side of your long knife around the edge to firm it.

Cut the dough into eight scones:

Make four equal cuts with a long serrated knife to divide the dough into eight sections. Move the knife slightly back and forth on its flat side with each cut to make it easier to separate each scone.

Place the scones on your baking sheet:

Slide the flat side of the long knife under each scone and move it to the parchment paper on the baking sheet.

TIP: If you plan to store or serve the scones on a 10” cake round after they’re baked, make sure to place them on the parchment paper in the same order that you take them off of the dough circle. Otherwise, they will not form an even circle.

Bake:

Place your baking sheet on a middle rack in your preheated oven and bake for 14 to 16 minutes at 400°.

While the scones are baking, thoroughly mix the powdered sugar, lemon extract, and milk in a medium bowl until smooth and somewhat thin.

Halfway through, check to see if one side is cooking faster than the other and, if so, turn the pan around in the oven and continue to bake. Remove the scones to a cooling rack when the center of the scones feel solid, not liquidy.

TIP: If you plan to store or serve the scones on a 10” round after they’re baked, make sure to keep them in the same order that you took them off of the original dough circle. Otherwise, they will not form an even circle.

Glaze the scones:

Immediately after taking the scones out of the oven brush or dab the glaze on top of each scone with a <a href=”/silicone-brush/” target=”_blank”>silicone brush</a>.

After you glaze each scone, sprinkle some dried or fresh lemon zest on top so it sets in the glaze.