Sour Lemon Scones

I might have a lemon problem. I just finished telling you about a lemon-butter sauce, and now I’m on to lemon scones. Yesterday, I made lemon gelato. I’ve been adding lemon to cold tomato soup, putting preserved lemon in all kinds of salads, and lemongrass keeps appearing in dishes I’m making lately. Guess what flavor my birthday cake was earlier this year? So, I like lemon and so does Kurt, and we both like scones as much as we like lemon. Given that track record, it’s hard to believe I hadn’t tried this recipe sooner. I picked up the Baked book the other day, looking for something interesting for weekend breakfasts, and there I found Sour Lemon Scones. If my lemon problem initially sounded crazy, then it’s about to get worse. You see, there’s an optional ingredient in these scones. Yes, I said optional. As an option, if you so choose, you could add chopped candied lemon peel to the scone dough. My first thought was that I’d call a few local stores, ask if they have candied lemon peel since I never see it when I’m shopping, and if I located it, I’d use it. If not, it was optional. After hearing multiple times that it’s not available because it’s only stocked during the holiday season, that word “optional” started getting blurry. I became convinced that it was absolutely necessary that I try these scones with the candied lemon peel included. I bought some organic lemons, peeled them, and made my own candied lemon peel. This could definitely be a lemon problem.

It’s not entirely my fault for going out of my way to make candied lemon peel. The recipe for making it is right there in the book. To quote the scones ingredient list: “1/2 cup diced candied lemon peel, optional (recipe follows)” I had to make it. I did only make enough for the scones though. I peeled a couple of lemons, and I always use organic when I’m using the peel or zest. The peels were placed in a saucepan with cold water, brought to a boil, and drained. This was repeated two more times to remove some of the bitterness. Then, the drained peels were placed in a saucepan with two cups of water and a cup of sugar, and I left it to simmer for almost an hour and then turned off the heat. The peels were left in the sugar syrup until cool enough to handle, and then they were cut into strips and returned to the syrup. You can store the strips in the syrup in the refrigerator for a few days, or after a few hours, you can removed the strips from the syrup, roll them in sugar, and leave them on a cooling rack to dry. I left them to dry overnight and made the scones the next day. The scone dough was a mix of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, powdered ginger, butter, egg, buttermilk, and lemon zest. I used a mix of all-purpose flour and whole wheat pastry flour. After the butter was cut into the dry ingredients and the egg, buttermilk, and lemon zest were added, the chopped candied lemon peel was folded into the dough. Just before baking, the scones were brushed with buttermilk and sprinkled with turbinado sugar. And, when they were baked and cooled, I couldn’t resist drizzling them with a lemon and confectioners’ sugar glaze.

It’s possible that my brain was too busy thinking lemon, lemon, lemon, but I really barely noticed the ginger. I’m wondering if grating a little fresh ginger into the dough would be interesting next time. But mostly, I’m thinking about how deliciously lemony they were, and I’m delighted there are still a few in the freezer for another day.

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