Starting at the top center and going clockwise, they are; 1 3/4 cups of flour, 4 to 6 tablespoons half-and-half (still in the carton), 1 beaten egg, 2 1/2 tsps baking powder, 3 tbls sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/3 cup butter (cut up) and 1/2 cup currants. At the bottom of the photograph is a pastry blender. You can either use this or a food processor.
If you are making these by hand, use the pastry blender and cut the butter into the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in the egg, currants and enough half-and-half so the dough leaves the side of the bowl.
If you're using the food processor, follow the same steps as above, but in the processor. Follow the instructions for your particular model for making dough. For my Cuisinart I had to use the blade rather than the pastry blade. It made one slight difference (which I'll discuss later).
This is what the Cuisinart looks like with the blade in place.
Once the dough is formed, roll it into a ball and place it on a floured surface. I use a pastry board for this, but a counter top will work too. Notice the specks in the dough? It looks like poppy seeds. Those are the currants. The drawback to using the Cuisinart is that the slicing blade chopped up the currants. The finished scones tasted fine, but looked a little funny. Doing it by hand doesn't do this.
Knead the dough ten times and then roll it out 1/2 inch thick. Then use a two inch round cookie cutter to cut them out like this:
Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush the dough with beaten egg like so:
The strange looking one on the left was made from the leftover dough that wouldn't fit into the cutter. Bake them in a 400 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes. When you remove them from the oven immediately take them off the cookie sheet and cool them on a wire rack.
Your end result will look like this:
Bon appetit!
