Lemon Basil Scones

How can you not love a scone?  It's a biscuit, but fancy!  What's even better is that you most likely already have all the necessary ingredients sitting in your pantry and refrigerator.  Flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, and milk - those are the essentials.  Everything after that is the proverbial gravy and turns your average biscuit into a scone, like magic.

For this initial foray into the world of scones, I wanted something fresh and perfect for breakfast.  I did decide to go a bit non-traditional and made these with more milk.  This turned them into drop scones as opposed to a regular scone that would be kneaded, rolled out, and then cut into your desired shape.

Lemon Basil Scones

Ingredients:

2 c. flour

3 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

5 Tbsp unsalted butter - cold

1/2 c. fresh basil - chopped

Grated lemon peel from 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

3/4 c. whole milk

1 egg

Directions:

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

Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together.  Gently stir in the basil and grated lemon.  

Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until it forms coarse crumbles.  Add egg, milk, and lemon juice.

This is a actually a very wet dough, so turning it out onto a table, well floured or not, is a very bad idea.  Don't be like me.  What you see above was a real pain to clean up.  Instead, you will want to drop batter onto the baking sheet in amounts the approximate size you would like your scones.

Mmmmm, look at all the lovely fresh basil!

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

They had a wonderful fresh citrus flavor with just a hint of sweetness.  Adding the lemon juice aids in creating an even lemon flavor throughout the scones with just a bit of additional zing from the lemon peel.  This was a great way to start my morning!