Buttermilk Scones

This is a recipe I owe Petunia..

I have been hoping to try it out again before giving it to her.. (my feeble attempt at being responsible with every recipe I hand out)..

I really struggled with finding buttermilk in the supermarkets near my place. I think I went to about 4 supermarkets.. In the 4th supermarket, I managed to find what I am looking for.. except that box of buttermilk was really too big. There was no way I would use it without wasting half of the box!

So at the 4th supermarket, I decided to do away with the buttermilk and just use a substitute instead.

Hmph.

Excuses aside.. very sorry Petunia, for sharing this recipe so late. It's been more than a month.. almost two, I think! Anyway, I really love this recipe. Hope you'd like it too.

This recipe came from the book Baking with Julia, the contributing baker is Marion Cunningham. I adjusted the steps to make it a little easier.

Ingredients
Dry ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
Other Ingredients
1 1/2 stick (6 ounces, or 170g) cold unsalted butter (cut into cubes - make sure it is very cold)
1 cup buttermilk (I'd share my replacement recipe in a separate post)
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

4 tablespoon dried fruits (I used raisins)


What I did
1. Preheat the oven to 220 deg C
2. Stir all the dry ingredients together
3. Add the cold butter (make sure it is very cold) to the dry ingredients and use a pastry blender, 2 knives, or fingertips to rub the butter into the flour, until the mixture resembles cornmeal
4. Add the buttermilk and lemon zest to the mixture and mix gently with a fork until the flour mixture is just moistened. Add the raisins
5. Roll the dough into a ball and knead it briefly. (At this point, because of my warm hands, I put the mixture into the fridge for about 10 minutes)
6. Then roll out the dough out and use a cookie cutter to cut the dough into a desired size.
7. Bake for 12 to 15 mins, or even longer, depending on the size and thickness of your scones.

My over-sized and rustic-looking scone - Not so pretty 

but the raisins and lemon zest makes it pretty good..

The Husband's scones, made from the same recipe 

(except he used buttermilk, and not a substitute..) 

Now, why can't my scones look so good?