Light & Crisp Delicious Cherry Scones

Making Homemade Cherry Scones

In Michigan July is cherry season.  In Traverse City Michigan they host a Cherry Festival that celebrates everything cherry.  It allows us the ability to go up and pick fresh cherries so we can make our favorite cherry dishes, including cherry scones. You can also find fresh cherries in your store or possibly farmers market.

These are pretty easy to make, and are not a super sweet treat.  You can enjoy them with a pat of butter.  And left overs, you just warm it up for 20-30 seconds and a little butter.  It’s so good with your morning coffee.

How Do You Add Butter To The Flour Mixture?

We add all the dry ingredients (including the granulated sugar) together. Prior to that, we have cut the butter into small pieces and allowed it to stay in the refrigerated to keep it cold. Once all the dry ingredients are mixed, we get the cold butter out and add into the flour mixture. You can use a fork (or pastry blender), some people use a food processor. The fork takes a long time, the processor can make the dough tough and the butter too fine. I have found pressing the cold butter between my fingers and squishes into the flour so that they are flat. It’s hard work, but worth it. If the butter gets too warm, you can place the bowl into the fridge while you gather your wet ingredients.

Tips For Adding Liquid

The scone dough is a dryer dough. I have found that mixing the vanilla extract, half and half and egg together and mixing together before adding is the best way to get the egg mixed together the best.

Are Tart Cherries or Sweet Cherries Used to Make Scones?

You can use either tart cherries or sweet cherries to make this scone recipe. It is a preference on tartness. Be sure to remove the cherry pits and use chopped cherries.

Are Fresh Cherries Used or Frozen Cherries?

We have used both. It is better to add the cherries while mixing the dough, so that they will be incorporated easier. We have had instances where the dough was getting warm and we put it in the fridge to firm up. This has caused it to be difficult to add fresh cherries as they are squished while flattening the dough. If you have a firm dough, frozen cherries may be best. But either work if you know what is going to happen when you are forming the dough. You can even use dried cherries (you will want to hydrated the dried cherries before using and drain them)

Can Almond Extract Be Used?

You can definitely use almond extract in place of vanilla extract. You could also do 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon almond flavor, which ever you prefer. Almond flavor definitely enhances the flavor of the cherry scones.

Can Heavy Cream Be Used to Make Scones?

Heavy Cream is normally used to make scones. This scone recipe is made with half and half as we have this on had more often than heavy cream. Feel free to use heavy cream if you prefer.

Do You Need To Cut Scones With Biscuit Cutter?

It is personal preference.  You can cut the scones into triangles, make them like rough shaped biscuits (our preference) and use a biscuit cutter.  I do find that using a biscuit cutter, gives more uniform shape.  The biscuits do expand from the baking powder so make them a little smaller as they do expand while baking.

Tips For Baking Your Scone

• You want to use cold butter, so it will melt while you bake.
• Use heavy cream or half and half. You need extra fat content to keep texture of this recipe.
• Use a biscuit cutter to cut out scones to make even sized scones. You can also make rough scones as well (like drop biscuits), keeping in mind they will rise and get bigger.
• Freezing scone dough is possible, flash freeze before placing in freezer container and be sure to label and date.