A few weeks ago, I made Ina Garten's Cranberry Orange Scones in all their full-fat glory. They were light and delicate with a richness that can only come from butter and heavy cream. But I wanted to see if they could be as good without so much fat. I used fat-free half and half instead of cream, but still used all the butter, so they still have a lot of fat. The recipe below is 1/4 of the original version, producing seven 3" scones. Next time, I'll try cutting back on some of the butter to make them even lower in fat.Ina Garten's Cranberry Orange Scones, Adapted Lower-Fat Version
Rating: 10 out of 10
INGREDIENTS: 1 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp. sugar, divided use
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. orange zest
6 Tbsp. cold or frozen butter (3/4 stick)cut into small cubes
1 large egg
1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp. fat-free half and half, divided use
1 Tbsp. frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1/4 cup dried cranberries (or dried mixed berries)
1/4 cup toasted broken pecans
Heat the oven to 400F. In work bowl of food processor, combine flour, 2 Tbsp. sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest; pulse briefly to distribute ingredients. Add butter and pulse with quick, short motions till butter is size of small peas. Do not overprocess; you should still see bits of butter throughout. In small cup or bowl, whisk egg, 1/4 cup H&H and OJ concentrate. Add to flour mixture with the fruit and nuts and pulse again with quick, short motions, just till combined and dough forms. Scoop out the dough, which may be sticky, and place it on a floured surface. With floured hands, pat the dough into a round, 1" high.
Cut with 2-3/8" diameter round cutter. You will have "tail ends" of the dough (see photo).Just push the "tail ends" in towards the dough and cut again. If you do this with all your cuts, you won't have to reroll the dough.
The less you handle the dough, the more tender and delicate your scones will be.
Place the scones on parchment-lined baking pan. In small cup or bowl, combine remaining 3 Tbsp. H&H and 2 Tbsp. sugar and brush the mixture over the scones. (The sugar will enable the scones to brown nicely while baking and create a crisp crust.) Bake the scones for 12-15 minutes. (You can test them with a toothpick to see if they are done; be sure you don't overbake them.) Transfer to a wire rack to cool. If desired you can drizzle them with a mixture of 1/4 cup 10X sugar and 2-3 Tbsp. orange juice. I left mine plain.
Yield: seven 3" scones
18 comments:
The flavors in this scone sound wonderful and I love that they are reduced fat.
Those look really good!
Those look delicious Judy!! I love a good scone and coffee.
Those just look so good. I haven't had a scone in quite a while. I need to change that!!!
Sounds good, Judy...I will add you to my blogroll and follow you!!!
Beautiful scones, and I liked the fact that you mixed the berries.Perfect with a cup of coffee!
I've never made any of Ina's scone recipe because of the fat content - glad you were able to lighten these up!
10 out of 10? I have to try these! I just love teh cranberry and orange combination! Is it completely terrible that I have the urge to slather your low-fat scones in clotted cream? It's a weakness of mine, I know!
Elyse - I eat them plain because they are just sweet enough for me, and there's already so much butter in them they really don't need anything else. But I admit that clotted cream is divine.
I've yet to ever make scones, but they always look so good. These do look a bit like the Levain cookie, which I've heard, but never really thought.
I WILL make scones someday! ;)
I love the changes you made. Cranberry orange scones are my FAVORITE!!
Now I could bite into one of these .. right now! I also love your crab recipes and am bookmarking .. have some crab in the freezer. Yeah, I know you are thinking "freezer"? Hey we here in the midwest do with what we can get :)
These look lovely Judy! I still haven't decided if I like scones, but you sure do make them look good :)
I too haven't attempted to make Ina's scones because of the amount of fat, but these look good. My husband loves scones so I'll have to give these a try.
Sam
Those scones look good! Orange and cranberry is a nice combo.
Yum, yum! Looks delish! What a pity, in my city I can't find cranberries... =(
Did you cut the butter at all? Because .75 of a stick times 4 is still 3/4 lbs of butter. Just the half and half for cream? I'm thinking of doing these with less butter, too, and seeing if its still as nice!
Candi, I just edited my post to make the point clearer that all I eliminated was the 1/4 cup of cream. Next time I'll try playing with the butter. One idea I have is to sub Smart Balance 50/50 butter blend, and take 1 Tbsp. out (4 Tbsp. from the original full recipe). This way, at least some of the fat would be good fat. I'm afraid to take too much fat out, as it would change the texture of the scone.
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