Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Meyer Lemon Scones


Chris and I went to Whole Foods the other day and found a few ingredients that we have been looking for -- including Meyer Lemons. I had never heard of Meyer Lemons before I started reading food blogs but they are a cross between a lemon and either a tangerine or mandarin orange, which makes them slightly less tart than regular lemons and excellent for cooking with. I didn't have any specific recipes in mind when we bought them, but when I started searching the blogs for recipes I decided Baking Bites' Meyer Lemon Scones would be great because a nice basic scone recipe would let the flavor the lemons shine through, plus scones are pretty quick to throw together which makes them ideal for a week night.

One thing to watch out for in this recipe is that Baking Bites says that you will get 8 scones and that you should bake them for 20-22 minutes. My 8 scones looked awfully small (mini-scones really) and I was afraid that 20 minutes would be too long, therefore I set my timer for 15 and ended up pulling my scones out at 17 minutes -- a change reflected in the recipe below.

Plus, Baking Bites wanted her scones glazed in a very basic white sugar and lemon juice glaze, but I opted for more of a frosting. Based on my experiences with the glaze/frosting recipes in A Passion for Baking -- all powdered sugar glazes/frosting should have melted butter in them -- they just taste better that way. I also didn't really measure all that carefully when I made my frosting. I took about a tablespoon, maybe a smidge more, of butter and melted it in the microwave. Then I tossed in about 2/3 cup of powdered sugar and squeezed half a lemon over all that. I mixed it up and slowly added more lemon juice until I got the consistency I wanted.

My frosting/glaze is very, very tart and sweet. Not quite tart enough to make your jaw clench, but close. The sugar balances it all out though and it is wonderful on top of the scones which are not all that sweet -- definitely more of an English style (i.e. not sweet like American scones). However, I of course dumped frosting on it which immediately put it right back in the American-style scone realm. *shrug* I like them quite a lot and can see repeating them whenever I can find Meyer lemons.



Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, chilled and cut into 10-12 small pieces
8-10 tbsp fresh meyer lemon juice
1-2 tsp meyer lemon zest

For Glaze:
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp melted butter
juice of one lemon (but you might not need all of it)

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add butter and toss to coat. Using your finger tips, rub the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles very coarse sand. A few large bits are ok, but most should be smaller than a pea.

Add 5-6 tablespoons of lemon juice and zest and stir dough with a fork. Add remaining juice until dough comes together into a not-too-moist ball. Divide dough in to two balls and flatten onto baking sheet to for discs about 1-inch thick. Divide each disc into quarters and separate slightly.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until scones are a light golden color. A toothpick should come out clean, but color is a reliable indicator for these.

For glaze: mix the sugar, butter and juice of half the lemon in a bowl. Add more lemon juice as required to get the consistency you want for the glaze. Glaze the scones hot from the oven.

8 comments:

mira said...

this looks yummy!!

(and i don't even like scones that much. except for the bacon-cheddar kind. ;-)

Anonymous said...

by far the best application of meyer lemons i've ever encountered :)

-jb

Anonymous said...

the scones were really good - if a bit tarter than i'm used to. in any case, i really enjoyed it...thanks!

Shellie DomesticHerald said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shellie DomesticHerald said...

I made these this morning and they turned out wonderfully! I did make a few changes [due to lack of ingredients on hand and my need to experiment]...I didn't have any Meyer lemons or even enough regular lemons, so I used juice from 1 and 1/2 regular lemons and made up the rest with Key Lime Juice and I threw in some poppyseeds. I also used the Lemon/Lime juice for the glaze...mmmmmmm...they really are, um, were delicious! Thanks for sharing your recipe!

Anonymous said...

I have a few meyer lemons from a friends garden and was looking for a lemon scone recipe. Thanks, for the tips.

Nicole said...

My husband and I made these scones tonight. We couldn't find Meyer Lemons, so we used regular lemons. We substituted one tablespoon of lemon juice with water and used only one teaspoon of zest in the mix (We figured that the regular lemons would be tangier than the Meyer Lemons.). They came out beautifully! We aren't bakers, and this was super easy. We enjoyed them with some irish breakfast tea with milk and sugar. YUMMMY!

hillary said...

Thanks for this recipe! I also made them with regular lemons and followed the previous commenter's suggestion to substitute a little water in the lemon juice to dilute it. I doubled the recipe to make 16, and they came out beautifully!