Cranberry Scones

I generally have 2 market days. On Wednesday I attend a local tent style market set up in a local shopping mall parking lot. My dogs love this market. They get to go for a ride (I can't even say that out loud), they get to sniff other dogs who come to the market (we call it exchanging business cards) and the absolute favourite thing is to drag me over to the stall that sells sausages. Thank goodness the vendor is a dog lover and always has some samples of low sodium turkey kolbassa to give them as treats.

Each week I tell myself I'm absolutely not going to go over to the vendor who sells the absolute best scones I've ever tasted. I try to get the recipe each week and each time she laughs at me and tells me she'll have to shoot me if she gives me the recipe. When asked what her secret is, she simply says baking powder and cream cheese. AHA!!!! It's all in the cream cheese. So now I'm on a mission to duplicate those scones. Cooks.com has some recipes with cream cheese so I started with their Scottish Blueberry Scones substituting the blueberries for cranberries.

1 3/4c unbleached flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c milk
1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 Tbsp milk
1/2 c sugar
2 Tbsp butter
1 c dried cranberries

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Use metal blade in dry food processor. Add flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cream cheese and butter to machine. Process until cream cheese and butter completely disappear. Add milk and mix with 1/2 second pulses until dough begins to clump.

Remove blade and stir cranberries into dough. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces. Coat baking sheet lightly with shortening or line with parchment paper. Pat each piece of dough into a 4" diameter cushion. Transfer to baking sheet, brush tops with egg glaze.

Bake on middle rack of oven for 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown. (mine took 15 minutes).

Verdict: Next time I'll double the recipe and make the scones larger. These were very close to market lady's recipe. I'll see if I can get a little more in tips this coming Wednesday :).

UPDATE

I went back to see my scone lady at the market and told her I attempted to replicate her fabulous scones. I shared with her that although the flavour was pretty similar, the size and the tenderness were different. After getting another tip!!!! "add a little baking soda" - yayyy. I'm not sure how much is a little but I'll make them again and try with 1/2 tsp to start. I couldn't resist taking a photo of the comparison between hers and mine.