Blood Orange and Cardamom Scones

I had not quite gotten my fill of scones after last week and decided I should get a bit more creative with my next batch.  Cardamom is a spice that I had only heard of fairly recently, thanks to my Great British Bake Off obsession.  Based on what had been said about the spice, I was not really chomping at the bit to use it.  It sounded like something that needed to be treated with care and that is not generally my style.  But, I decided it was time to put on my big girl pants and use an adult level spice.

The choice to use blood oranges was entirely last minute.  I was in the grocery store staring at the orange display.  On my left were the regular oranges, in the center were the organic oranges, and to my right the blood oranges.  I love blood oranges, mainly because of the color.  So there I am in the store looking at the options, looking at the prices, looking back at the options.  There is only the slightest difference in cost...that does it.  I throw caution to the wind and into my cart go the blood oranges.

I write "caution" with only the slightest bit of sarcasm.  It's not like I went from wanting to use an orange to instead choosing garlic.  We are still solidly inside the citrus category and remaining under the subheading orange.  I realize this, but I still felt a little like a rebel choosing to use the blood orange.

Thankfully, they did not disappoint me and hopefully they do not disappoint you either.

Blood Orange and Cardamom Scones

Ingredients:

2 c. flour

1/4 c. sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

5 Tbsp unsalted butter - cold
1 tsp. cardamom 

Grated peel from 1 blood orange

Juice of  1/2 a blood orange (should be about 1 tablespoon)

1/2 c. whole milk

1 egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Sift flour, sugar, and baking powder together.  Gently stir in the cardamom and grated blood orange.

Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until it forms coarse crumbles.  Add egg, milk, and blood orange juice.  Stir until liquid is just incorporated.

Look at that color, I love it!

You should notice that this batter will quickly absorb the liquids while still appearing on the dry side.  Do not fear and do not add more milk.  At this point you are going to turn out the dough onto a well floured surface.  Briefly knead dough (I counted to 15 to keep myself from over kneading) and form into a ball.

Squish the dough down a bit and cut into the desired shapes.  I went with triangles because that just how my scone game rolls.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until the scones are a nice and brown.  Cool on a wire rack.

These came out better than I could have imagined.  They had subtle hints of citrus and cardamom, nothing was over powering.  The best part?  The smell when they are warm.

I don't know how you all feel about the microwave, but I could not survive without mine.  Since I decided to be selfish and keep these all to myself, I was able to have scones for breakfast for a few days.  I microwaved them for about 20 seconds so that they would be just warm enough for butter to melt on top.  The smell was amazing and basically made the whole week for me.