Add a plateful of these delightful Bourbon Cranberry Orange Scones to your next holiday breakfast or brunch of bacon, eggs, fruit and eggnog.
The Bourbon Icing drizzled on top is just the right flavor to add to these delicious Cranberry Orange Scones.
Easy to make, these scones take just a few minutes to mix. I like to make these scones with 2-3” round cookie cutters instead of the traditional triangular shapes. They are smaller, and are a pleasure of a bite. Nothing big and doughy like other scones.
These scones don’t spread much during the baking process so they are also a nice bite for a special afternoon treat with a cup of your favorite coffee. And dipping them in extra Bourbon Icing puts them over the top!
This recipe serves up 20-30 scones of the 2-3” variety, depending which combination of sizes you use.
Preheat your oven to 400F degrees.
Prep your pans:
Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. It makes cleanup so easy.
Gather up the Ingredients:
2 C Flour
2 T Sugar
1 T Baking powder
1 t Salt
2 T Orange zest, fresh, separated
¾ C Butter, cold, diced
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
½ C Heavy cream
½ C Cranberries, dried, diced
2 T Flour
Egg wash Ingredients:
1 Egg yolk
1 T Milk or heavy cream
Bourbon Icing Ingredients:
½ C Powdered sugar
1 T Orange juice, freshly squeezed
2 t Bourbon
Make the icing and set aside:
- Whisk the powdered sugar, orange juice and bourbon together so they are well combined and drizzle freely. If you think it’s too thin, just add a tablespoon of powdered sugar. If it’s too thick to drizzle, add a little more orange juice or some water.
Mix and bake the dough:
- In an electric stand mixer on low speed, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest to completely combine. NOTE: Set aside 2 teaspoons of orange zest to sprinkle on top of the Bourbon Icing if you like.
- Take the bowl off the stand mixer. Add the cold cubed butter and mix in with a pastry cutter until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. You could also beat the butter into the flour mix with the electric beater set on low speed. I prefer to cut it in with the pastry cutter so I can better control the sizes of the butter crumbles. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, lightly beat the heavy cream and eggs together. Set aside.
- In another small bowl, mix the ¼ cup of flour with the diced dried cranberries until all the cranberry pieces are coated. Set aside.
- Return the bowl to the stand mixer, on low speed, and slowly add the heavy cream and egg mixture. Mix just until combined. Do not overmix.
- Make sure to scrap down the sides and the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the ingredient are incorporated.
- Add the floury cranberry pieces and mix in. Do not overmix. It will be a little sticky.
- On a clean and floured surface, pour the dough out of the bowl.
- Coat your rolling pin with flour and roll the dough, turning it over once so both sides get flour on them.
- Roll until about ½” in height. I like my scones thinner. You could roll the dough out thicker if you like.
- Dipping the 2-4” cookie cutters into flour, cut out the scones and place on the parchment paper lined baking pans.
- Chill the pans of raw scones in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.
- While the scones are chilling in the refrigerator, lightly beat the egg yolk and heavy cream to make the egg wash.
- Take the chilled scones out of the refrigerator and brush a little egg wash on each one. Immediately put in the oven.
- Bake the scones for 10-15 minutes until light golden brown. They should be a little glossy on top. I rotate the pans at the 8-minute mark so my scones brown evenly.
- Take the scones out of the oven and allow them to cool for 5 minutes on a rack.
- While the scones are still somewhat warm, stir the Bourbon Icing and drizzle over the scones with a fork.
- Garnish: I like to place one dried cranberry and a little orange zest on top of each scone to help identify what’s on the inside. They are delicious when they’re warm!
- Let the scones completely cool and dry before packaging.
Serving these delicious Bourbon Cranberry Orange Scones:
- They are delicious plain, with butter, fruit jam or cream cheese. One day when I made these scones, I happened to have some honey-hazelnut cream cheese on hand – delicious!
- If you like them warm, place them in the microwave on high or medium for just a few seconds. Yum!
Other flavor options:
- The base recipe is so delicious and easy that I plan to use it to make other flavors – blueberry lemon scones, mini chocolate chip scones, chocolate scones, rum or rum extract and butter pecan.
- Be sure to top the scones with something from the inside in order to alert people as to what’s inside. For example, top the mini chocolate chip scones with a few little chocolate chips. Or, place a pecan on top of the rum and butter pecan scones. A tasty addition for the mini-chocolate chip scones would be the addition of a chocolate hazelnut spread when they are served.
- Change up the icing flavors to complement the flavor of the scone. For example, put some rum or rum extract in the icing for the rum and butter pecan scones.
Storage:
- These scones are deliciously fresh for about 3-4 days when left in a loosely covered container at room temperature.
- I have kept the scones in an loose covered container for up to 7 days in the refrigerator.
- To freeze, layer them between parchment paper in an airtight container for up to a month.
This Bourbon Cranberry Orange Scone recipe is an excellent recipe with which to change up the flavors and additives like dried fruit, flavored chips or even flavorings and extracts. So, whatever flavors you substitute in this recipe, be sure to “Bake your own Memories!”