Scones! A Great Rainy Day Fare

Yesterday I was reading a post by Deb of The Wug's Backyard Blogspot, and I found myself wanting to make some comfort food.  One of my favorites is this recipe for scones that I found on Allrecipes.com.   Don't they look delicious?    

World's Best Scones

Ingredients

• 13/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup dried currants or raisins
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or rubbing between your fingers until it is in pea sized lumps. Stir in the currants. Place bowl in freezer to re-solidify the butter.  Mix together 1/2 cup milk and sour cream in a measuring cup. Pour all at once into the dry ingredients, and stir gently until well blended. Overworking the dough results in terrible scones!
2. With floured hands, pat scone dough into balls 2 to 3 inches across, depending on what size you want. Place onto a greased baking sheet, and flatten lightly. Let the scones barely touch each other. Put in fridge until the oven is hot.  This is important for a good scone I think.   Whisk together the egg and 1 tablespoon of milk. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. Let them rest for about 10 minutes.
3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops are golden brown, not deep brown. Break each scone apart, or slice in half. Serve with butter or clotted cream and a selection of jams - or even plain.

Now when I make them, as I did this morning, I always add pure vanilla extract to the milk/sour cream mixture. I made, first of all, apple cinnamon ones. For these I omitted the raisins and added cinnamon and chopped apples. They are yummy! You can sprinkle a bit of cinnamon sugar on top before baking if you wish.

The other batch, again I omitted the raisins and this time I added coconut. To the milk/sour cream mixture, I not only added the vanilla, but also some coconut extract. I think these are some of hubby's favorites!

I've also made cherry (using dried cherries), cranberry (using craisnins), cheese, vanilla almond and pumpkin. For the pumpkin ones, I use pumpkin pie spice and a package of pumpkin pudding.

There are really so many ways to make them and they always turn out great!

Enjoy!