It is game night again!

Can you believe it is already Saturday again? This time around, I made Irish Soda Bread and have carrots and Ranch dressing, as well as almost an entire home-made pizza for our friends. I'll give you the recipe for the Irish Soda Bread later in a different post, but for now, I wanted to share the recipe for these amazing scones I made earlier today. (Yeah, it was that kind of day...)

This scone recipe comes from the Tomato Lady at Little House in the Suburbs and it is definitely worth trying. I put the recipe below, but if you haven't stopped by the Little House in the Suburbs, you should...those ladies are full of all kinds of useful knowledge. As for the scones, honestly, I could not believe how easy these were and they were so good that I haven't even tasted them with butter yet!
Home-made Scones
[This is Tomato Lady's tip of using frozen butter...try it, it really worked!]
Note: For the best result, if you know you are going to be making this, say, for breakfast the next morning, freeze the butter in advance. Take it out before you start to mix up the other ingredients and grate it on the coarse side of a grater. Pop it back in the freezer while you mix up the flour and leavening and prepare the milk & egg mixture. If you want to make these up on the spur of the moment, go for it. It will still be excellent without freezing the butter.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry flour or a combination of the two)
1 T. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 T. sugar (you can leave this out with good results) [I kept it in]
4 T. unsalted butter
1 large egg
milk
1/3 cup raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, or chocolate chips [I used raisins]

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar (if including).

Lightly beat the egg in a large measuring cup that shows ounces. Add enough milk to the egg to equal a total of 5 oz.

Take the grated butter from the freezer and cut it into the flour with a pastry blender. When it resembles breadcrumbs, add in the milk/egg (reserve 1 tsp. to brush on the tops) and stir gently to combine. Add raisins (or add-in of choice) and stir them in. Work the dough as little as possible.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and give the dough a few folds. Here's another opportunity for individual preference to assert itself. You may pat the dough into a round and cut it into wedges. Also feel free roll or pat in out about 3/4 in. thick and cut it into biscuit shapes with a cutter or cut it into squares or diamond shapes with a knife.

Place on ungreased baking sheet. [I used my Pampered Chef pizza stone.] Brush tops with reserved milk/egg and bake for 10-11 minutes.

I've been wanting to make scones for the longest time and this recipe seemed to be right up my alley. I am so glad I tried it. Next time we're having blueberry scones! I'm also going to remember that "grating frozen butter" tip for other recipes...it was that much easier. Let me know when you try them, I'm eager to know what you think.