Scones for a serious crowd.

In the spirit of the breakfast that comes before our monthly equity meeting at work, I tried to come up with something delicious and simple enough to whip up in mass quantity. I originally considered croissants, which, thankfully, a co-worker talked me down from.

After throwing around ideas of rice pie and eggs, I settled on scones. But only only ONLY if I could have clotted cream. And tea. Let's face it; scones are nothing without tea and clotted cream. Additionally, these will be served at 7.30am Eastern time. That means in England it will be 12.30pm. An early tea time, if you will.

Clotted cream is easier to find in Chapel Hill than one would think.

This recipe made 32 homemade-looking scones. Don't make these if you are concerned with appearances. Do if you are concerned with authentic, delicious tasting scones that are not from a mix.

This dough will freeze. In the case of freezing, I would cut, lightly flour, and then freeze the scones. All you will have to do is pop them out of the freezer and into the oven. Delightful!

Here is what you will need:

6 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 TBS baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp salt, which I forgot until it was way too late. (agh!)
1.5 cups unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces. Do not let them get soft!
1 c. sour cream
1/4 c. Greek yogurt (you can use sour cream for this as well if you prefer)
3 eggs

add-ins:
nuts, berries (frozen or dried), extracts, zest

Preheat the oven to 400.

In an extremely large bowl, blend the first 5 ingredients. Next, add in the butter. Now for some fun. Use your fingers to work the butter into the dough. It will be chunky, like rough cornmeal.
In a seperate bowl, blend the next 3 ingredients until smooth. Add the cream mixture into the flour mixture, first mixing with a fork, and then your fingers, until a sticky dough forms.

Turn the dough out on to a floured surface.

At this point, I divided the dough into thirds, reserved 2, and made one batch of plain scones. The next two batches I made were blueberry (petite, frozen berries) and orange cranberry pomegranate (orange extract and berry mix from Trader Joe's). The quantity you fold in is completely preference. Remember, frozen, melt-y, and liquid add-ins will make your scones more loose. You may need to add a little extra flour to the cutting board.

For each batch, form dough into a rectangle that is about 3 inches across, 1-1.5 inches high, and however long you need it to be to reach the other two measurements.

Cut from the bottom of the first corner up, at about a 45 degree angle. You will have one triangle scone. continue cutting at a right angle and then at a 45 degree angle until you have reached the end.

Move the scones to a non-stick or parchment-lined baking sheet. If you are using a higher and lower rack (as opposed to one in the center of the oven), rotate scones half way through cooking.

Bake for about 15-18 minutes (checking after 12), until golden brown around the edges.

Serve with clotted cream, jam, marmalade, and tea.