ESPRESSO PAULO FRUIT SCONES

Start to finish: 40 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup dried fruit
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Flavoring to match fruit (see list that follows)

To create different flavors of scones, use one of the following combinations:

Blueberry: 1 cup frozen blueberries and 2 tablespoons lemon extract
Cranberry-Orange: 1 cup dried cranberries and 2 tablespoons orange extract
Apricot-Almond: 1 cup dried apricots and 1 teaspoon almond extract
Vanilla-Raisin: 1 cup raisins and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Lemon-Poppy: 1/2 cup poppy seeds and 2 tablespoons lemon extract
Pumpkin Spice Cranberry: 1 cup dried cranberries plus 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 tablespoon ginger, 1 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/4 cup molasses

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (This temperature works with my very crowded convection toaster oven. If you have a kitchen-sized convection oven, 355 to 360 degrees might work better. For a full-size standard oven, 375 degrees should be OK.)

Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking soda into a large mixing bowl and mix. Add the cup of dried fruit and mix. Break eggs into a separate bowl and whisk. Add oil, milk, flavoring and vinegar to the eggs and whisk again. Add the liquids to the solids and mix together until just combined. Use a folding action to minimize the working of the dough.

Grease two 8-inch round baking pans using cooking spray. This is critical to ensure that the scones rise and release easily from the pans.

Divide the dough equally between the two pans and place the pans in the pre-heated oven. Bake about 25 minutes (check with a toothpick; it should come out clean when fully baked).

If you like more of a crust, use a 2-ounce ice cream scoop to place small mounds of the batter onto a greased sheet pan. You should get about 16. Leave a couple of inches between each to allow for expansion. Cook about 20 minutes, testing with a toothpick for doneness.

If you have a convection toaster oven like I use, rotate the pans 180 degrees after baking 12 minutes. This is essential, as the pans almost fill the oven and severely restrict the airflow of the convection fan.

Remove the pans from the oven to a cooling rack for about 10 minutes, then turn out the scones onto the rack to cool completely before serving.

Makes 16 scones.

Note: Be careful with the orange and lemon extracts. The ones I use require 2 tablespoons. Yours may be more concentrated, so you might have to experiment.

In baking, unlike other types of cooking, quantities and pan sizes are critical. I use 8-inch pans with 2-inch straight sides. They work much better than the type of pan which has shorter, sloped sides.

Read more: Paul Ashton: The secret of scones - - Wicked Local - Cape Cod http://www.gatehousenewsservice.com/lifestyle/food/x1499087268/Paul-Ashton-The-secret-of-scones#ixzz1MdRPJ1qi