Clementine Scones with Honey Vanilla Butter

Its the time of the season....for winter citrus.  Think about freshing up your traditional recipes with blood orange, meryer lemon and clementines!  This is my traditional scone recipe, leveraged from the Joy of Baking, accented with tart, sweet clementines.  I love this scone flavor and find that these do not need to be glazed, especially when buttered with an Ina Garten inspired honey-vanilla butter (see recipe below).  

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar
• 2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup (75 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup (120 ml) milk, half-and-half, or heavy cream
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed clementine juice, cold
• 1 1/2 T clementine zest

Directions:  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and place the rack in the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat. 

In a large bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender, two knives, or with your fingertips. (The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.) In a small measuring cup whisk together the milk or cream, clementine juice, beaten egg, zest, and vanilla extract. Add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir just until combined. Do not over mix.  

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough gently four or five times and then pat into a 7 inch (18 cm) round. Cut round in half and form each half in to smaller rounds.  Then, using a lightly floured knife, cut the dough into triangles (as if cutting a pizza).  Place the  triangles on the prepared cookie sheet, spacing a few inches apart. Brush the tops of the scones with a little cream (this helps to brown the tops of the scones during baking).

Bake for about 15 - 18 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Honey Vanilla Butter

Ingredients:

• 1/4 pound (one stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 T good honey
• 1/8 t ground cinnamon
• 1/8 t vanilla
• 1/8 t kosher salt

Directions:

Combine the butter, honey, cinnamon, vanilla and salt in the bowl. Serve at room temperature.