You ask for scones, I'll give you scones!
Thank you all, so much, for your condolences about my grandmother, I really appreciate it. It's been a challenge to celebrate the publication of Royal Holiday with so many mixed emotions, but it has really helped over the past few days to see and talk to so many great people, and hear how you're enjoying the book, so thank you all so much. And I have more tour dates upcoming for Royal Holiday (which you can buy at any of the links here, or from the bookstores listed): tonight I'll be at Books Inc. in Mountain View at 7 pm, in conversation with Kathy Zhang; tomorrow I'll be at Barnes and Noble in Portland at 2 pm, in conversation with Sarah Smith; Sunday I'll be at Third Place Books, Seward location, in Seattle at 7 pm, in conversation with Nicole Cliffe, and on Monday night I'll be at the Studio City Library in Los Angeles at 6 pm, in conversation with Alisha Rai. Details for all of the events are here on my events page, as are details about my other events in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, North Carolina, Texas, and Portland in a few weeks!
Speaking of Sarah Smith, I'm in the midst of her debut, Faker, which comes out next week, and last night I did that thing where I was just going to read a few pages before bed, and then a hundred pages later I was still reading. This book, about Emmie, who works at a construction company, and has to fake that she's hard as nails to deal with all of the dudes she works with, and Tate, her work nemesis, is charming as hell, and I think you'll all enjoy it as much as I have been. Go preorder it so you get it when it comes out on Tuesday!
Delicious scones play a role in Royal Holiday, so of course I had to give you a recipe for them! This comes from Dorie Greenspan, whose recipes I've shared with you a bunch before, but that's because her recipes are great and I use them all the time. I do not know how authentic and British this recipe is, but I do know it's delicious. She includes currants, I often include lemon zest (especially Meyer lemon zest, since I am very lucky and have excellent friends who share their Meyer lemons with me) but you could omit both and these scones are still great, and even better topped with butter or clotted cream (if you can find it in the U.S.) or lemon curd or jam.
Cream Scones
(from Baking From My Home To Yours)
1 large egg
2/3 cup cold heavy cream
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled*
3/4 cup moist, plump currants (optional)
zest of one lemon (optional)
* It's important here to cut the butter into pieces and then chill it; cutting it warms it up, and you want the butter super cold here
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the oven rack in the center of the oven, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk the egg and the cream together in a small bowl or measuring cup (I tend to use a measuring cup here, because it's easy to pour later). Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Drop in the butter, and toss the pieces with your fingers to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Add the lemon zest here, if using it. Then, either working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, mix and rub the butter together into the dry ingredients until you have a mixture that is partly crumbs and partly the size of peas. You can also do this part in a food processor, but pulse, don't mix, and go slowly -- the processor warms up the butter, so you want to be careful here.
Pour the egg and cream mixture over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until the dough comes together; the dough will be wet and sticky. Add the currants here, if using them, and gently knead the dough by hand inside the bowl about 10 times to incorporate the currants and distribute them around the dough.
Dust a work surface with flour, turn out the dough, and divide it in half. To shape the scones into wedges, pat the half of dough into a rough circle about 5 inches in diameter, cut the circle into 6 wedges, and place the wedges on a baking sheet, and repeat with the other half of dough. Or you can pat the dough into a circle, and cut out circles of the dough with a biscuit cutter (or a glass, whatever you use to make biscuits). This way makes scones the shape I like them, but you have to work the dough more as you cut and reshape the bits, so you end up either wasting some dough or making a few scones that aren't quite as good as the others. Do it whichever way you like better!
(You can also freeze the dough at this point -- freeze them directly onto the baking sheet, and then when they're frozen, take off and wrap them airtight. Bake straight from frozen, just add about two minutes to the baking time)
Bake the scones for 20-22 minutes, or until their tops or golden. Cool for 10 minutes before serving, and serve with whichever delicious additions you choose.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and I hope I see some of you soon!
Jasmine
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Buy The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and The Wedding Party and preorder Royal Holiday!