Date and Poppy Scones

A couple of weeks ago, while planning for the vaguely-infamous Brunch 2.0, I came across Clotilde’s recipe for yogurt scones, which looked both intriguing and easy enough for my measurement-impaired style of baking. You see, I have a very short attention span for following directions to a tee. I think it’s genetic: my great grandmother famously vexed her daughter – my grandmother – by keeping her ‘recipes’ on slips of paper that listed ingredients and quantities mostly unrelated to the way she made things. My grandmother simply doesn’t seem to use recipes, and so on. Consequently, my attempts at baking have a habit of being disastrous. Surprisingly, I thought these scones, based loosely on Clotilde’s, came out pretty tasty.

~1 ¾ cup flour
- Just under 7 tsp white sugar
- Just over 2 tbs. butter, (at room temperature)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 135 ml plain yogurt, plus three tablespoons later on
- 2 Tbsp milk
- A small handful of chopped dates and ¾ tsp poppy
seeds.

(Yields 8-ish scones.)

- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Line a cookie sheet with wax paper, and dust it with flour.
- In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar and baking powder.
- Cut in the butter until the whole lot is crumby-looking.
- Add the measured yogurt and milk.
- Mix the dough until it gets doughier, adding the additional yogurt as you go until it has a nice doughy consistency.
(Apparently you’re not supposed to over mix the dough, but since I don’t really know what this means I ignored it.)
- Once the dough is the right consistency, fold in the dates and seeds.
- Fold in a few more dates and poppy seeds, because what you have probably isn’t enough.
- Smoosh dough into a ball and place on floured wax paper, then press it down with your hands (or something more elegant, like a rolling pin, if you must).
- Cut into as many pieces as you like.
- Sprinkle some more seeds and date bits on top of each one (I actually for got to do this, but it would’ve been a good idea).

- Put in the oven for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven – they probably aren’t done yet.
- Panic, but then take the opportunity to brush some melted butter on to them, which you probably should have done in the first place, and put them back in for another 5-10 minutes or so.
- Remove from oven, let cool a bit (but not too much), and serve with strong coffee and mimosas.

If you prefer a more traditional approach to baking, please refer to WRC's previous recipe and prnounciation guide.

Image shamelessly lifted from NM.