***_{Here’s what you’ll want with your coffee Christmas morning!}***

…dedicated to the memory of my friend, longtime neighbor, and excellent baker, Jan Keder (1930-2024)

I got up one day last week to go to a class I attend weekly and thought, “I’ll just make some festive scones of some sort for our last December meeting.” What did I have? I had cranberries and white chocolate chips. So that’s what I made: Cranberry- White Chocolate Chip Scones. When I arrived at class and set them out, my classmate and good friend, Teresa Latimer, asked if these were from a King Arthur Scone mix. Ah, nope. Just straight out of my kitchen. I was, however, interested enough to later get on the computer and look at the mixes (turns out there are several good looking ones) — but there was only Cranberry-Orange from them so I’m good. Didn’t want to be copying KA or anything. I really admire them but…phew!

It did encourage me to type into the google search, “Cranberry-White Chocolate Chip Scones.” (I don’t usually do this but did that day.) Surely great minds think alike and all, because there were more than a few recipes and let’s just say we probably don’t need to go down that particular baking rabbit hole. Just for fun, I looked more closely at a couple — at least one was from a food blogger I’ve known for years. The ones I saw were NOT just like mine and I breathed out one more time. Silly, I know but…hey; this is my thing. Some were made with heavy cream unlike my sour cream choice; others had 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips! 1 1/2 cups. That’s a lot of chocolate. Really sweet, too. Enough for a big batch of cookies. One, believe it or not, contained shortening. Scones are butter-centric; butter is a core ingredient! Shortening? I don’t think so. I took a second look as I couldn’t believe it and realized the shortening was used to help melt the white chocolate chips for a drizzle; the scones themselves were made with butter. Ok then. Scones were saved for the day once again.

There are a couple of scones on the blog lately — variations on the same theme but different, none-the-less. I had no plan to put another version up but after I baked these and it was almost Christmas, the Scot in me thought, “Why not?!” There’s little like a scone and once you’ve made them, you make them again and again. They’re that easy. If you have a bowl and an oven…and the ingredients, too…you can make scones.

Whether it’s Christmas or even New Year’s morning, make sure your coffee’s good and hot when you try this:

Print Recipe

Cranberry-White Chocolate Chip Scones

This holiday or winter variation is adapted from my Blueberry or Peach Scones, which were originally adapted from Sour Cream and Fruit Scones by Dawn Perry in the New York Times. Best fresh, bakers can make the dough, cut the scones, and freeze them for up to a month to later bake from frozen. (Bake a few minutes longer if the dough is frozen.) I make these using a food processor for mixing the dry ingredients and cutting in the butter, but they will work fine from start to finish in a large bowl with a pastry cutter or your fingers to cut the butter into the flour mixture if need be.

Makes 8 large or 16 small scones

Ingredients

2 cups/240 grams unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the counter or board
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling on scones before baking or freezing
1 tablespoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup frozen salted butter (4 oz/115 grams) cut into 1/2-inch slices or pieces
1 cup (99 grams) fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
¼ cup (43 grams) white chocolate chips, coarsely chopped
½ cup (170 millileters)sour cream or full-fat Greek yogurt
¼ cup (57 grams/60 millileters) milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg– beaten with 1 teaspoon water (You'll only need a tablespoon of this mixture. Save the rest for another use or cook for the dog.)

Instructions

PREP: Preheat oven to 400 degrees with a rack in the upper third. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
MIX DRY INGREDIENTS/CUT IN BUTTER: In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade or in a large bowl if using a pastry cutter or your fingers, measure in the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Pulse or stir a few times to mix. Add the pieces of butter and pulse carefully 8-10 times if using the machine (or cut in with pastry cutter/crumble-mash with fingers) until you have pea-sized and smaller pieces of butter.
TURN OUT FLOUR MIXTURE INTO A LARGE BOWL (if not already using the bowl) and stir in the chopped cranberries and chopped white chocolate chips. In a measuring cup, whisk together the sour cream or yogurt with the milk and vanilla extract and pour the mixture into the bowl. Using a table fork, stir until all the dry bits are incorporated, but the dough is still shaggy. Knead a few times until the dough barely holds together. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and form into a rough ball.
PAT DOUGH with floured hands into a 1-inch-thick rectangle approximately 6” x 10”. The dough needn’t be uniform, smooth, or terribly neat. Using a pastry brush (or your fingers), brush lightly with about a tablespoon of the egg mixture. Sprinkle the top of the dough with a teaspoon or two of granulated sugar. (Optional: chill dough 30 minutes.) Using a bench scraper or a knife, cut into first 2, then 4, then 8 (or then 16 for smaller scones) rectangles. Place on prepared sheet pan as far apart as possible as the scones will spread quite a bit. Note: You can also cut this dough into 32 bite-sized pieces for a buffet or large brunch. I recommend freezing the dough 30 minutes before baking for this very small-sized scone.
BAKE scones 18-22 minutes. The scones should be golden brown on the bottom and have golden patches on the top. Remove to a rack and cool for a minute or two before serving warm. Scones will keep for a day or two, well-covered. To reheat, split in half lengthwise, spread lightly with butter, and grill until toasty and hot in a stove top grill pan or skillet.

Notes

TIPS:

*White chocolate: There are lots of kinds of white chocolate chips and some have a sort of off flavor I wouldn’t encourage adding to a loved baked good. I used the readily-available Ghirardelli brand; others prefer the Lieber’s Real White Chocolate Chips (unlike much white chocolate, these contain cocoa), which are available via amazon.com. My recipe indicates chopping the regular sized chips because there’s only 1/4 cup and with pieces of chips, the white chocolate chip taste and texture is spread more evenly. Occasionally, perhaps at Whole Foods, you’ll see mini white chocolate chips–which would work wonderfully– but I don’t see them in all stores. You can also just chop some white chocolate and go that route; you might get a better quality of chocolate there. Best bet: taste your chips first and decide if you want them in a scone. They can be left out. You could then add another 1/4 cup chopped cranberries OR sub chocolate chips.

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE MY:

Cranberry-Apple Whole Wheat Olive Oil Cake (photo above)

Cranberry-Cheddar Biscuits

KIDS BAKE THANKSGIVING: Ginger Cranberry-Blueberry Muffins

Cranberry Jam Thumbprint Cookies (photo below)

LIFE GOES ON:

You might remember another bobcat or two on the blog. Where we live in Colorado Springs– up on the mesa on the west side of I-25, which runs north-south through the state from Wyoming to New Mexico and separates the plains from the mountains–we see bobcats periodically, but not all that regularly. Two or three times a year, I’d say. The word is they aren’t seen in daylight unless they’re very hungry. This guy was 35-40 pounds (I’m guessing a male from the weight) and sat calmly right in front of my sunroom window on the garden path. Beautiful creatures but also known to grab neighborhood cats among other things.

…

My Christmas table is not so traditionally Christmasy right now but perhaps will be in the next day or two. This setting, featuring my Williams-Sonoma blue tablecloth (repaired after one of the dogs chewed off a corner) and rosemary plants wrapped up like gifts, was for my book club dinner last week. 8 of us somehow squeezed in for a fun meal together. As members are of different religious traditions, I tried to skip the Christmas theme but still had some as my tree was up. We also chose our books for 2025-always a fun project. Oh, what was the menu? Main course was choice of Boeuf or Champignon (Mushroom) Bourguignon. We began with popular blog starters: my kalamata olive tapenade and my shrimp-green chile pimento cheese served with vegetables and crackers. Salad was one of my favorites, the very popular Julia Moskin’s Lemon-Garlic Kale Salad. Dessert? Melissa Clark’s Extra-Bittersweet Chocolate Pots de Crème topped with brandy whipped cream. I’ve made this a dozen times and it’s always perfectly luscious but not too heavy. Coffee, off course. And much-needed.

…

Above: our tree in my cookbook library. A fine place for it.

Whatever you’re celebrating and even if you’re not, I wish you a happy cooking and baking December. I appreciate your visiting the blog year-round and look forward to seeing you in my kitchen in the new year. I’m glad you’re not here right now because it’s a god-awful mess. Ah well, that’s the Christmas Kitchen. Always the same. How else could it be?

Bake some scones!

Alyce

below: my friend Jan Keder (1930-2024)

More Time at the Table

Cooking with Alyce Morgan

Cranberry-White Chocolate Chip Scones