- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen we're making some buttery, amazing scones. So let's get started. First off, set your
oven into 400 Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet
with parchment paper. Now, in a large bowl, I'm adding 2 1/2 cups, or 300
grams, of all-purpose flour. Okay. I also want 1/4 cup, or 50
grams, of granulated sugar. Sprinkle that right in. To puff things up, I'm using 2 1/2 teaspoons
of baking powder. And for contrast, 1/2
teaspoon of sea salt. In you go. By the way, these scones
are gonna be so soft and fluffy and buttery, but golden and crisp on the outside. They are not those disgusting, horrible, no-good, dry, rock scones that you get at the like various places. I don't know why they sell them. These are gonna be delicious,
and they're so easy. Grab a whisk. Our scale is done. And we're gonna whisk this together. Whisk, whisk, whisk until
everything is nicely distributed. You do not wanna have a mouthful of salt or of baking powder, mm-mm. Once it's all mixed, go ahead
and grab some ice-cold butter. You can even keep your
butter in the freezer for like five or 10
minutes before this recipe so it's really hard. You don't want it to
just melt and ooze out. That can give you a dry scone. You want it to be really cold so that in the oven, it steams up and puffs up
and makes everything amazing. Set this aside. 1/3 of a cup, that's 76 grams. Super hard. Okay, we're just gonna cube
it up into small pieces that are a little bit less than an inch. And for this recipe, if you
want like the best practice, I guess you would use
European-style butter. It's higher in butterfat
and has less water. I'm using regular American-style
butter today, though. If you're abroad and watching this, you might look at this recipe and say, hmm, I know a good
scone or scone when I see it; this looks a little different. So an English-style scone, which I love and I have a recipe for and there's a video for, is gonna be like a biscuit in America, not an English biscuit. It'll be round, beautiful layers, buttery. You can like pull it open. It's a wonderful vehicle
for jam and clotted cream. Oh, so good. This is an American-style scone, which is similar in texture. It has a little bit less structure. It's much easier to make. And they're shaped usually like triangles. So there's so many different flavors. I'll talk about the mix-ins in a moment. But think of this as like a
blank canvas for deliciousness. They whip up really quickly, and you can add almost anything you like, which is also true of
an English-style scone. You could have many
different things in that. I like them plain. My butter's chopped. I'm gonna set this aside in my fridge while I get the rest of
the ingredients together. I don't want this to warm up. That would be not optimal. (bright music) Now, in a smaller bowl, I'm mixing 3/4 of a cup,
or 180 mLs, of heavy cream. If you're not in the U.S., it's called double cream, I believe. But you can correct me in
the comments if that's wrong. One large egg. This could be cold. And a tablespoon of a nice vanilla. Mm, it makes all the difference. This is like almost the last
of this vintage that I made. I have some more that
are brewing in my pantry. It's really fun to make your own vanilla, because normal vanilla is
made usually with like vodka or some kind of like just
straight alcohol spirit. When you make your own, you could use bourbon or
dark rum or whatever else to add more flavors to it. And then these vanilla beans, you can just keep adding
to them and adding to them with more and more. It's like the gift that keeps on giving. Anyways, grab your whisk one more time. And we're gonna mix this up
until it's nice and smooth. See, unlike an American biscuit,
a scone has an egg in it. All right, nice and smooth,
and it smells so good. This is all mixed up. I'm gonna place this
in the fridge as well, because I just don't feel like
having a plain scone today. I want to have something
exciting in there. So you can add about 1/2 cup, a little bit more, of any mix-in you want. Today I'm gonna use some dried apricots and pecans that are toasted. That's gonna be really nice. It'll look pretty too. But I have to chop it,
and nothing can get warm. It has to stay cold. Okay, these dried apricots
are really pretty, and I love the taste and texture of them. They have like a little
bit of a tanginess to them and they're perfectly sweet. If you wanted, though, you could use dried or fresh blueberries, you could use dried cherries, any kind of nut that you want. I was tempted to use macadamia nuts today, but I don't know, I save those
for like special occasions. Not that videos with you aren't special. I'm just saying like something
extraordinary like for those, 'cause they're so luxurious. Chop these up into smaller pieces. And if you wanted to use
raisins for this, that's fine. I would always soak mine in rum overnight if I'm gonna use them. Otherwise I don't. No, (clicks tongue) not into it. Giving my pecans just a
little bit of an extra chop, 'cause they're kind of big pieces. All right. Now we're ready to assemble. Grab your cold butter, plop that in. And now we wanna work this
butter into pea-sized pieces. You could use a pastry cutter,
you could use your hand. Oh, you could use your hands
or a fork to mash it in. I'm gonna go with the pastry cutter today just because I feel like it. You don't want your butter
to be too small, though. It's important that you
maintain those little lumps, because that is the magic to that tender, fluffy,
moist, and amazing scone. Okay, just a few mashes is all it took to get these wonderful pea-sized pieces. Now add your mix-ins if you're using any. You don't have to. Plain is still delicious. I just felt like it today. Give that a toss so
everything's nicely distributed. Grab your cream from the fridge. And now we're gonna mix
this in just with your fork. Scoot things along so it
gets nice and hydrated. This will make a really
shaggy, kind of messy mixture, but when it's messy, you
know it's gonna be the best. All I wanna see is most of
the flour streaks are gone. I'm gonna press this together, and then we're gonna chill
it for just a little bit too. Any kind of errant dry bits will get some cream soaked
into them and hydrate up. Every once in a while, when I'm at a certain chain coffee store and I'm hungry and I
decide to get a scone, oh my gosh, every single time I'm like, it looked so good, but why is it so dry? Why is this? Why did I do this to myself? And you don't have to do this to yourself. You can make these, you
can freeze them as well, and then bake them from frozen. So you can have like an
on-demand treat in the morning if you want it perfectly fresh. And even if you made
these a day or two before, you can just heat them
up in the microwave, your toaster oven, your
air fryer, your oven, and they are just like new. They're gonna be so good. You'll regret having ever bought one. This mixture is nice and shaggy. There's definitely some dry parts, but gonna work them together
with my hand just a little bit. Okay, dump this out onto the surface. You could lightly flour it or not. I don't bother. Oh, no, it looks kinda messy. That's actually how it's supposed to look, so don't panic if this happens to you. Gather this mess. It looks like it exploded,
but it's totally fine. And we're gonna shape this into a disc and do some pressing. The pressing will make magic happen, because you really just need
to encourage all those dry bits to become part of the mass. Hmm, perfect. Okay, you want this shaped
into a seven-inch disc. One of my weaknesses, I have absolutely no idea how to measure distance by eyeball. So my measuring tape
tells me this is perfect. Should be fairly thick. If your scone is too
thin, it's gonna be dry. You need to have that interior volume so it really can be
moist and fluffy inside. Okay, use your bench
scraper or a floured knife, and we're gonna divide this
into eight equal wedges. So just find the center of
your circle and press through. Clean your cutting tool
off in between cuts so it doesn't start pulling things apart. And you can sprinkle a little
flour if necessary too. Once your pieces are cut, first of all, just take a look inside. You can see these beautiful, big splotches of butter throughout, as well as all the mix-ins
that you chose to add. This, however, needs to freeze
up for about 15 minutes. Although if you wanna
prep this out a day ahead or several days ahead,
however long you want, this can go into the freezer, and you can bake 'em from frozen. Plop those onto your prepared baking sheet lined with parchment paper. And this goes into the freezer
for at least 15 minutes. After chilling, you're gonna
brush the scones on top with about a tablespoon of cream. This will give them a nice finish, and so they'll be golden on top. But it'll also be glue to
hold some more sugar on. The scones themselves
aren't super sweet at all, so it's always nice for anything that is
supposed to be a little sweet to have a sprinkling of sugar so the first bite has a bit
of crunch and sweetness. Just brush the top with
cream, not the sides. Finish your scones off with
a sprinkling of coarse sugar. You could use granulated sugar if you don't have any of
the extra-big crystals. My scones are ready to go into the oven, 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until the tops are a
beautiful golden brown. In you go. (bell dings) Let your scones cool in the pan, maybe drizzle with an optional icing, and they're ready to enjoy. That tastes like a hug. It's golden, perfectly sweet, and the outside is crisp as can be, but the inside is a buttery
cloud of deliciousness. Oh my gosh. With the mix-ins, it's
just about perfection with a cup of coffee. I hope you get a chance
to make this recipe. And if you liked this video, check out my breakfast treat playlist. (bright music)
