These scones are everything a spring afternoon tea should be: buttery, tender, and bursting with bright lemon and blueberries. Keeping the berries frozen helps create those beautiful violet streaks throughout the dough, while the crisp tops and soft interiors make them particularly well suited to generous amounts of cream. Slightly messy to assemble but entirely worth the effort, they are best enjoyed warm with tea and the comforting illusion that one will stop at just one.

Lemon Blueberry Scones

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• Yield: Makes 12 scones. 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 250 g or 1 ¾ cups frozen blueberries
• 21 g or 3 tbsp confectioners’ sugar
• 360 g or 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 170 g or 6 oz unsalted butter, cut into 1.25 cm or ½-inch pieces, divided and kept chilled
• 66 g or ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• zest of 1 lemon
• 15 ml or 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 ml or ¼ tsp salt
• 255 ml or 9 oz milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C or 400°F (190°C or 375°F convection). Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, toss the frozen blueberries with the confectioners’ sugar. Return to the freezer until needed.
3. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, granulated sugar, lemon zest, baking powder, and salt.
4. Add half of the chilled butter and pulse until fully incorporated (about 15 seconds). Add the remaining butter and pulse until the butter is reduced to pea-sized pieces (12 to 15 pulses).
5. Transfer the flour mixture to a large bowl and gently stir in the blueberries.
6. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and egg yolk.
7. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the milk mixture. Using a rubber spatula, gently stir by scraping from the edges of the bowl and folding inward until a shaggy dough forms with a few dry bits remaining. Do not overmix.
8. Turn the dough onto a generously floured surface. Flour your hands well — this is admittedly a slightly messy enterprise. Knead the dough briefly, just until it comes together (about 3 turns).
9. Using floured hands and a bench scraper, shape the dough into a rectangle approximately 4 cm or 1½ inches thick. Using a 6 cm or 2½-inch round cutter, cut out 12 scones, reshaping the dough as little as possible.
10. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until the tops are lightly golden.

• Author: Helen Kain