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As part of our review of The Dirty Apron Cookbook, we tried the recipe of the Dirty Apron Scones. I was very impressed by how easy the recipe was, and for making it for the first time, how great the scones turned out. Are you preparing a brunch on New Year’s Day? This will be a good recipe to prepare ahead of time and just finish it off in the morning after recovering from all the champagne and drinks!

Although the recipe was easy to follow, we discovered a few things that we would suggest tweaking as you make your next batch of scones. We’ll note the suggestions at the end of the post. The recipe below is as found in the cookbook:

Basic Scone Mix

Recipe provided by David Robertson / The Dirty Apron Cooking School

Ingredients

• 3-1/3 cup All-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2/3 cup Unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes

Preparation

1. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
2. Using your hands, a pastry blender or even two knives, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse oatmeal.
3. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 1 month or freeze for up to 3 months.

Dried Fruit Scones

Recipe provided by David Robertson / The Dirty Apron Cooking School

Ingredients

• 1 Basic scone mix
• 3/4 cup Coarsely chopped dried fruits
• 3/4 cup Sour cream
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 1 Egg, lightly beaten
• Sugar, for dusting

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Place the scone mix in a large bowl and add the dried fruits.
3. Pour in the sour cream and milk, and mix just until the batter is moistened.
4. Knead until a dough is formed, then press the dough into an 8-inch circle and cut into 6 equal pie-shaped wedges.
5. Place the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the scones with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool.

Spicy Cheese Scones

Recipe provided by David Robertson / The Dirty Apron Cooking School

Ingredients

• 1 Basic scone mix
• 3/4 cup Thick chunky salsa
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 3/4 cup Shredded cheddar cheese
• 3/4 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1 Egg, lightly beaten

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Place the scone mix in a large bowl. Pour in the salsa, milk and cheeses, and mix just until a batter is moistened.
3. Knead until a dough is formed, then press the dough into an 8-inch circle and cut into 6 equal pie-shaped wedges.
4. Arrange the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the scones with the beaten egg. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool.

Tweaking the Recipes

• With our oven, the bake time was actually close to about 30 minutes, instead of 25.
• The recommended 8-inch circle dough made quite a big piece of scone. Too big for our liking. Our preference would be to make it into at least a 10-inch circle then cut into narrower pie-shaped scones. But the scone shape would be altered, so the next time we make this again, I will try making the dough into two 5-inch circles then cutting them into pie-shaped scones. This will make smaller scones, but more to share around the brunch table.
• According to the cookbook, you can easily make up your own scone flavours. “Just use 3/4 cup total” of whatever ingredients that you want to use. It’s not very clear to me how it would work because there are more ingredients in the provided dried fruit and spicy cheese scone recipes. The milk seems to be essential to remain in the recipe (it’s in both versions of the scones), and it looks like you may need another 3/4 cup of moisture (e.g. sour cream). I would like to test out the recommendation to confirm how it works.

Final Thoughts

With the two flavours of scones, I liked the dried fruit one for the crispy exterior and slight sweetness, and Mr. liked the spicy cheese one because they were more moist. As I said earlier, this is an easy recipe, even for inexperienced bakers like me. I would definitely make them again and I’m tempted to create a few more flavours to make it more fun and to test out the suggestions in the cookbook. Hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did!