Honey Scones and Variation

This wonderful recipe was given to me by one of the best cooks I know: Dawn Aldridge. She tells me it was originally from a Woman's Day book called Best of Baking. My "adopted daughter," Angelika Mein, suggested the variation I mention. I love making these for breakfast!

HONEY SCONES

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

¼ cup milk

¼ cup honey

1 egg

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. With pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until fine crumbs form. With fork, blend milk, honey and the egg; stir all at once into flour. Turn out on floured board and knead a few strokes until dough holds together. Pat dough to make 9” circle and cut into 8 or 16 wedges. (These scones rise a lot, so you may want to end up with smaller ones.) Bake on greased baking sheet in preheated 400° oven for 10 minutes, or until tops are browned. Brush tops with additional honey, if desired.

Variation: Add 1 tablespoon culinary lavender to the final mixture.

DONNA'S NOTES: I used half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat pastry flour. I also reduced the sugar to 1/8 cup. I mixed the dry ingredients with the butter in my food processor until it looked like cornmeal, combined the wet ingredients in a bowl, then added them to the food processor. I processed this mixture until it clumped away from the sides of the bowl. I used a scoop to put the dough onto the baking sheet, then baked them as instructed. This method produced 13 scones.