So I made the mistake of buying blueberries out of season. And not just one box, but three. What was I thinking?? They looked so plump and juicy, but when I washed and tried them, they were spongy and tasteless. So much so that despite serving them (I couldn’t resist, they looked so good), I then warned my brunch guests against eating them!
But I can’t abide waste so I took to the internet to see what could be done to avoid slinging them in the bin and just chalking it up to a learning experience.
I had had a disappointing experience with blueberry muffins, where the berries were good but the resulting baked goods were on the bland side, even for a self-confessed lover of a mildly-sweet baked good for breakfast. It is rare for Nigella to let me down, but it happened on this occasion. I think she wanted them to basically be a bread to spread with lots of butter and jam, whereas I want them to be a self-contained tasty breakfast.
To make matters worse, I had proudly taken them to a brunch with my husband’s extended family.
I remembered reading a Hemsley + Hemsley recipe for an instant blueberry jam, using chia seeds, which I thought might make a nice and relatively healthy topping for my morning yogurt. The result is a strangely grainy but quite tasty healthy approximation to jam but which only lasts for a week or so in the fridge (although I managed to push it a bit longer). Click and scroll past the banana bread (also delicious) for the recipe:
Next time, I’d just make half the amount to avoid having to throw any away and, in any case, I had only managed to use up one of my three punnets of blueberries so the search continued.
Devastated to be told that Starbucks had discontinued their blueberry scones (in France, at least) when I was last travelling through Charles de Gaulle airport, I had set out to find a replacement homemade version and stumbled across a Smitten Kitchen recipe. However, I read the recipe more closely, only to see that it needed wholemeal flour (which I didn’t have), Deb referred to tubinado sugar, which I had never heard of and therefore would have necessitated some research, and said they were best eaten on the day they were made, which didn’t fit with how I saw this going down. I was imagining being able to grab one as I rushed out of the door, on my way to playgroup or some other baby social.
So back to the WWW and this time I found a ‘copycat’ recipe for Starbucks scones so I set out to try it this weekend and the results were very pleasing! Those sad blueberries came over all jammy and tasty and the scones were a dream weekend breakfast, with no need for butter, jam or anything else, although, as you can see from the photo, I think scones provide the perfect excuse for eating cream – clotted, whipped or even creme fraiche will do here.
Here is the method I used, adapted from Sheri Silver’s Copycat recipe, in turn adapted from Cook’s Illustrated:
Jammy blueberry scone triangles, American-style
Ingredients
- 115 g unsalted butter, grated and frozen
- 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup creme fraiche
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch of fine salt
- 1 tsp grated lemon zest
Method
The trick with this recipe is to keep everything cold – it’s almost a pastry.
First, measure out and grate the butter, hard from the fridge. Wrap the grated butter in greaseproof paper and pop it in the freezer.
Whisk together the milk and creme fraiche in a bowl and place them in the fridge.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Add the frozen butter and ‘rub in’ with the tips of your fingers, coating each piece of butter with the flour and sugar mixture.
Add the milk and creme fraiche mix and fold in. Work together lightly but firmly with your hands and then knead briefly on a floured surface, adding a little flour if it’s too sticky, so that it forms a smooth dough.
Roll the dough into a 12″ square and fold the bottom third up and the top third down. Then turn 90° and do the same folding.
Place it on a floured plate and put in the freezer for 5 minutes.
Again roll out the dough to a 12″ square. Scatter the blueberries over and press them into the dough.
Roll into a log and press down with the seam on the bottom. Cut the rectangle into 4 squares and each square in half to make American-style scone triangles.
Place them on a couple of baking trays, spaced out more than I did (!) and brush the tops with melted butter or egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes or until golden brown and cool for 10 minutes before serving.