Mandarin and (White) Chocolate Chip Scones

For some reason I feel obligated to make enough food to feed all of my friends on any given day of the week. Therefore, when the first set of scones only made 8, I decided to whip up another batch. Plus, I wanted to test my theory that I was making the scones too big which was the reason they were turning out so ugly. I was also going to test the theory of too much liquid, but I ended up pouring a bit heavy-handed and this dough was just as moist as the last set. The good news is that the smaller scones were more attractive coming out of the oven. Yay for that. AND, I remembered to put them on a rimmed baking sheet so no more butter burning on the bottom of the oven. (Besides, I'm not sure how much more smoke the house could handle between Chris and me tonight...)

This recipe actually called for semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I decided to use white chocolate chips instead since I had an open bag and I know several people prefer white chocolate and orange instead of bittersweet chocolate and orange.

These scones have a powdered sugar glaze on them instead of the honey-butter glaze of the blackberry scones. I normally despise powdered sugar glazes since they almost always taste just like slightly pasty powdered sugar. yech. However, this glaze uses melted butter, orange liquor and milk which turned out to have a great flavor. Yay for finding a good powdered sugar glaze recipe. I can definitely see using this glaze (varying the liquor depending on the recipe) over and over again for anything that calls for powdered sugar and water.


Ingredients:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 tsp slat
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 orange (mine were small so I used two)
3/4 cup buttermilk (or more depending on how dry the ingredients are)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (unless you like white chocolate and orange)

Finishing touch:
melted butter or milk for brushing

Glaze:
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter melted
1/2 tsp orange oil or 1 tbsp orange liquor, such as Grand Marnier (I used Patron Citron)
Milk, as required

Preheat oven to 425. Stack two baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, add flour, sugar, slat, baking powder, and baking soda and blend briefly. Add butter and pulse to make a course, grainy mixture. Turn out mixture into a large bowl and make a well in center. Add egg, vanilla, orange zest and most of buttermilk. Stir with a fork, adding remaining buttermilk as needed to make a soft dough. Stir in chips.

Knead gently on a lightly floured work surface. Pat to 1-inch thickness. Cut into 14 to 22 circles of wedges. Place on prepared baking sheets and brush scones with butter or milk. Place in oven and immediately reduce oven temp to 400. Bake until scones are nicely browned, about 12 to 18 minutes.

Whisk glaze ingredients together in a small bowl, adding enough milk to make a drippy glaze. Slather on warm baked scones. Let glaze set.