Apple Raisin Scones

Scones are kind of like cookies, right? They can be round... soft... and... delicious? Either way, last week I had some kind of mini-epiphany. We sell scones where I work and I've indulged occasionally by having one, never once thinking (until now) that I could just make them myself. Why this hadn't occurred to me earlier is a really good question, but I made up for lost time by making this recipe twice in one week. Unfortunately, the second time around I was lazy and decided to skip the whole kneading the dough part. Turns out you can't really do that. Well, you can, it just doesn't produce as satisfying of a result. So heed my advice (which is probably common sense to most everyone else): KNEAD THE DOUGH!

After a bit of Google searching and perusing recipes, I came up with something. This turned out to be a little bit of a challenge since most of the recipes I came across called for sour cream. I don't have anything against sour cream, in fact I love it, we just didn't have any at the time. Sour cream is one of those things that we only have around if we've recently made some kind of Mexican dish, which isn't often, and then I would be the only one to use it since my boyfriend hates sour cream (amongst many other things that I enjoy, like pickles). Regardless, I wasn't going to drive all the way to the store for one missing ingredient that wouldn't receive much more use, so I came up with an alternative that worked. As far as deciding what to put in these bad boys, I had a giant container of rarely consumed raisins as well as some amazing McIntosh apples that I had just picked up from the store (which came as a very pleasant surprise since McIntosh apples are my favorite apples of all time and I didn't think they were in season yet) handy, and a combination of the two didn't sound bad so I went for it. The result was quite satisfying:

Beluga's Apple Raisin Scones:

For the scones:

• 2 cups flour (plus some extra for your kneading surface)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup (or 1/2 stick) of butter, cubed
• 2 tablespoons shortening (I've found an awesome organic all vegetable non-hydrogenated kind, made by Spectrum at my local supermarket)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 of a medium sized apple, chopped (I used McIntosh because they are nice and soft and also delicious, but I'm sure any apple of your choice would do. I also left the skin on, skin is good.)

For the glaze:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 to 3 tablespoons butter    

Directions:
Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add in cubed butter and shortening, mix well. Add milk and egg and mix until there are no visible chunks of butter left. Add in the raisins and apple pieces and mix until they are evenly distributed. Next (and as stated above, I don't recommend getting too excited and/or lazy and skipping this step), knead the dough onto a lightly floured surface for a couple of minutes, or until it is manageable. Take biscuit-sized pieces and place them onto your baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375.
While the scones are baking, melt the butter for your glaze and mix it in with the sugar. When the scones are nearly done (about 2-3 minutes of baking time left), remove them from the oven and coat each one with a portion of the glaze and then return them for the remaining baking time. Enjoy!