Raspberries I love you

 There is nothing better than coming home from 48 hours of airports and tarmacs than coming home to a note from your housemate that says : fresh picked cherries and raspberries EAT!  Well, let me rephrase. The only thing better is the fruit itself.   As a native New Englander I thought I knew good fruit.  What I’ve learned this summer is that, blueberries aside, Washington state knows how to grow some gorgeous summer berries.  And while I often gorge myself on cherries from the Ballard market, at the end of the day there is nothing, NOTHING, better than fresh picked raspberries.  

So you can imagine my delight when I opened up my refrigerator and found multiple yogurt containers brimming with wild raspberries.  That is what I call love.  Immediately swimming in thoughts of raspberry jam, raspberry yogurt cake, and raspberry pies I gleefully dove, handful by handful, right in.

However, on day three of gobbling up a 1/2 pint of berries for breakfast, I realized I needed another way to luxuriate in my berry abundance.  The answer was obvious: Raspberry Scones. Two things I love, together at last.

                                                                          

I used a recipe from Molly Wizenberg’s blog Orangette (with which I am absolutely obsessed) for Whole Wheat Apricot Scones because 1. I think she is great and 2. I accidentally bought whole wheat pastry flour instead of white.   I adjusted the recipe slightly by adding lemon zest, raspberries of course, and omitting the apricots.  I froze the fresh berries before baking with them and used the zest of 2 and 1/2 small lemons.  I am a bit wild I know, but I like a lot of lemony goodness in just about everything.

Ingredients: 

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. table salt
(½ stick) cold  butter
¼ cup sugar

2 cups small frozen raspberries

½ cup half-and-half, plus more for glazing

1 egg

zest of 2 lemons 

The recipe was very straight forward but, learning from my biscuit mistakes last week, I read the recipe in its entirety twice before even measuring or mixing a thing. I whisked the dry ingredients, zested in the lemon, and incorporated the frozen berries.  Next I combined the milk and egg (thoroughly beaten of course) and kneaded until the mixture formed a loose, if not a tad lumpy, dough ball. 

Then I hand flattened the dough into a circle and cut into 8 even wedges.

 Finally, I glazed each wedge with a little more milk and placed the wedges on a baking sheet with parchment paper.  425 degrees for about 15 minutes. I wanted mine with a bit more of golden brown crust so I switched on the broiler for a second, which may have been my one mistake. They definitely didn’t burn and are delicious if  I (and my roommates) do say so, but may lean just a tad to the too dry side, as far as scones go.  Nothing, however, a little butter and mug of coffee can’t fix.