Nancy's Buttermilk Scones

Scones are one my favorite comfort foods. It blends the world of biscuits with the light sweetness of a treat. They are dead easy to make and here is my favorite way to prepare them. I've seen other recipes that use egg, but in my opinion this makes the scone way too heavy. If you like them light and plain, try these! Please note that I've taken photos of each step and the numbers in parenthesis represent the photo at the bottom that corresponds with that step. I hope this helps!

Ingredients (1):

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled
1 cup buttermilk
bench flour
sugar for dusting

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl combine the first 5 ingredients (2) and whisk them together (3). Take 1 1/2 sticks of the chilled butter and cut it into small cubes and cut it into the dry ingredients (4). You can do this with a pastry blender or your hands. I prefer my hands. Work the butter quickly into the flour mixture until you have a variety of small to pea sized pieces throughout.  Pour in the buttermilk (5) and mix just until the dough starts to come together (6). Now, dust your work surface with flour and turn the rough batter onto the surface (7). There will be lots of dry mixture that needs to be kneaded into the dough. Knead as few a times as necessary to bring the dough together, making a thick circle of the dough (8). Cut the dough into two equal segments (9) and work the first piece into a circle and pat it out to about a half inch thickness, or as thick or thin as you like. Using a bench scraper cut the disk into 6 pieces as equal as possible. Set the pieces aside and repeat that process with the other segment of dough (10). If you're using a regular sized oven, place all 12 wedges (or as many as you cut) onto a baking pan (11). Melt the remaining 1/2 stick of butter and drizzle this over the scones. Dust the top of each scone with a pinch of sugar. Place the scones into a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until they are done to your liking (12 & 13). When finished baking, transfer the scones to a wire rack to cool (14).

Note:  I baked my scones in the toaster oven (it's summer right now and don't use the regular oven in summer) so I had to bake mine in two batches (see below).  They turned out great! I always line my baking sheets with parchment paper, but you don't have to do that. You can add cinnamon to the dry mixture if you like or even to the dusting sugar. Other things can also be put into the mix like raisins, currants, nuts and etc. to make them your own. For the top dressing, you can use sanding sugar, but I'm not so fancy. I use regular granulated sugar and no one around here is complaining! I hope you try these and I hope you love them as much as we do!