My Mom and I took my oldest daughter for her first Tea House exprience.  We went to Cambridge Tea House for breakfast the other day.  Her “tea” was a little girls hot chocolate in an adorable small glass tea cup, which she loved!  But when I glanced at the menu, I started to worry that my little pancake and waffle lover would be dissapointed because neither of these sweet syrupy breakfast staples were listed on the menu.  There were plenty of quiches and other savory egg based breakfast items, but this child barely chokes down scrambled eggs when I force her and has a strong aversion to most cheeses.  She wasn’t going to find the whole Tea House experience very fun if we couldn’t settle on something that she’d eat (and be excited about).  SCONES, I thought!  Maybe she’d like a sweet sugary buttery scone!  I asked about the flavors and was slightly worried that she’d turn her nose up at the two permanent scones flavors, Cream and Currant.  But when the server listed Butter Brickle as the scone of the day, I knew we’d found something she’d like.  I enthusiastically explained to her that it’d taste like little toffee or carmel bits.  She acquiesed and ordered one Butter Brickle Scone with a side of crisp bacon (duh!).  She loved it!  Later that day as we were driving home from some errands, I started day dreaming about scones….I know, weird!  I got to thinking about how I’d never made them before (and quite possibly had never ordered them before — in my opinion, they could be kind of dense, dry, awfully buttery and sometimes somewhat flavorless).  I got home and within minutes I was on Google looking for a scone recipe to knock my socks off.  Score!  I happened upon a recipe for Cranberry Orange Scones with Orange Glaze on a food blog called Forks vs. Spoons.  My socks were off!  The pictures were gorgeous and I just so happened to have everything I needed….including fresh cranberries which had kept very well in the refrigerator since Christmas.  These scones were delicious and relatively easy to make.  The kids loved them.  They were so good that I immediately gave away at least half of them (it was a purely selfish gesture…I was afraid I’d eat them all).  The orange glaze added a sweetness which paired well with the fresh tart cranberries.  I can’t recommend these enough…easy to adapt to other flavor combinations too.  Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Scones with Orange Glaze (Makes 10-12 scones)

*You will not need an electric mixer for this recipe, just a few bowls, a cleaned off floured surface and a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup + 3 Tbsp sugar, divided

3/4 tsp salt

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 Tbsp + 1/4 tsp grated orange zest, divided

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter (if you only have salted, just reduce the salt by half)

1 1/4 cup fresh cranberries, roughly chopped

2 large eggs

3/4 cup heavy cream (I used half and half to keep it lighter and it worked just fine)

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

3 Tbsp fresh orange juice (one large orange is enough to get the juice and zest that you need)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside (if you don’t have parchment paper, lightly grease the cookie sheet…and then buy parchment paper next time you are at the store).  In medium bowl, toss together chopped cranberries and 3 Tbsp sugar.  Set aside.  In large mixing bowl (you do not need an electric mixer), whisk together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, baking powder and orange zest.  With pastry blender, knives or fingertips, cut butter into flour/zest mixture until butter is pea sized (I cut the stick of butter lengthwise a few times on each side to make tiny squares and then added it in).  Fold in cranberries until combined.  In medium bowl (use the same bowl the cranberries were in), whisk together cream and eggs.  Pour over flour mixture and gently stir until the dough forms together.  Turn dough onto lightly floured counter top and knead a few times to further combine (you can add a little flour if you want because it may be very sticky).  Pat down to about 1 inch thickness.  Use biscuit cutter to get round shape or just cut dough into triangles (again, it may be pretty sticky, but you can reform it once you get the scones on the pan).  Bake at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from oven, transfer to wire cooling rack and let cool completely before icing.  In medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, orange zest and orange juice.  Spoon, drizzle or brush icing over cooled scones.  Store in airtight container.

Adapted slightly from Forks Vs. Spoons Blog