This is my all-time favorite American-style scone—no butter or jam needed! The chopped white chocolate and diced apricots provide plenty of sweetness, and there’s no butter in this recipe, but there’s plenty of cream!
The original version of this recipe came from a Penzys Spices newsletter, back when they used to be snail mailed to subscriber’s homes. I changed it up a bit, and—oh, let’s be honest here…I made it better by adding in the zest of one orange, upping the apricots, adding a bit of orange extract and deleting the almond extract 🙂
I prefer to make these scones with chopped white chocolate, using a Lindt White Chocolate Bar, 4.4 oz, but white chocolate chips are fine, too, as long as you don’t use Nestle’s White Chocolate Chips, which are nasty. Try Ghirardelli or Guittard white chocolate chips instead!
Apricot Cream Scones
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tsp. freshly grated orange zest from one large orange
- ¾ cup dried apricots, chopped
- 1 4.4 oz Lindt White Chocolate bar finely chopped OR ½ cup white chocolate chips—NOT Nestle’s
- 1½ cups whipping cream—not a misprint!1½ cups, NO butter!
- ½ tsp. orange extract OR vanilla OR almond
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400°.
- Line a rimless cooking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, orange zest, salt, diced apricots and chopped white chocolate. Mix well.
- Add the orange extract to the whipping cream.
- Add the whipping cream to the dry ingredients and stir, just until the dry ingredients are moistened. NOTE: this will be a messy job! I use a fork and then a spatula. Do not use an electric mixer or a food processor.
- When the dough sort of clumps together, turn it out onto a flour-covered board.
- Shape the dough into two rounds, approximately 6″ in diameter each—size of a small salad plate
- Cut each round into six pieces. I find a sharp knife best for this job as a pizza cutter gets stuck on the apricots and chocolate.
- Pull wedges slightly apart, just enough so the scones have room to expand.
- Bake at 400° for 12-15 minutes.
- Serve and share!
These scones are best when served soon after baking, but they are great as leftovers, too!
Enjoy! Thanks for dropping by!
