Cranberry-Orange Scones to Bake Someone Happy

Bake someone happy with these easy Cranberry-Orange Scones. Sweet cranberries, orange zest, and whole wheat pastry flour, not to mention ample butter, make for a divine weekend treat!

Scones are kind of my thing. I can’t remember ever having them as a child, but once I grew up and went to college in Santa Barbara, they became my thing. Laura Ashley was, also, for a time, but I’ve moved on. Lace doesn’t do much for me, but scones do!

In fact, when I was writing my first cookbook, I kinda had to hold back on the scone recipes. As it is, there are four scone recipes in that book! Only one scone recipe in Good Cheap Eats. But, if I had my way, there would be dozens!

(By the way, if you’ve been waiting to your hands on the freezer book, now might be the time to do it. They’ve knocked the price down to less than half list price!)

Scones feel fancy, but are incredibly easy to prepare. You don’t need any fancy ingredients. Heck! Depending on the recipe, you don’t even need an egg!

You can cut them into simple squares or triangles with a bench knife, cut them into fancy shapes with a cookie cutter, or with a quick twist of the wrist, turn simple triangles into hearts. Like so:

My favorite scones are light on the sugar and heavy on the flavor, usually from fruit or chocolate. This particular recipe is a riff on one my friend Jessika used to make growing up. I subbed whole wheat pastry flour and switched out the buttermilk for yogurt. I also tweaked the fruits included.

Okay, so it’s a little different than what Jessica and her mom Pandra used to make, but I believe in telling the back story to recipes. 😉

Lately I’ve been trying to switch us back to whole grains, so whole wheat pastry flour is my preference for this recipe. It most closely resembles the texture of unbleached all-purpose flour. If you can’t find that easily or in your budget, you can use white whole wheat flour which is a great option as well.

How to make this good and cheap:

Here are some of the strategies you can use to make this recipe more economical:

Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. When I find regular kitchen staples on sale, I buy a lot. I’m currently using a price book to track prices and that’s saving me money. For this recipe, keeping an eye on the price of flour and butter can help keep the price down.
Buying in bulk – It’s rare that I would buy a small package of dried cranberries. I usually buy the ginormous bag at Costco. I also have gotten into the habit of buying cases of flour from Bob’s Red Mill.

How I make this recipe easy:

One of the great things about scones is that you can freeze them before or after baking. If you freeze them prior to baking, you don’t thaw them, just slide the frozen scones into the hot oven and add a few minutes to the baking time. If you bake them first and then cool and freeze, you can very easily thaw them overnight on the counter so they’re ready when you are.

This recipe really couldn’t be easier than it is, but having the right kitchen tools can really make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable. Over time, I’ve honed my collection so that they are perfect for my needs.

Here are the tools that I use for this recipe:

food processor or pastry blender – Either of these tools make quick work of the short dough. You can do it by hand with two knives, but I prefer my food processor.
bench knife – I love this tool for easily cutting dough into pieces.
parchment paper – I hate washing pans. Parchment paper makes clean up a breeze.
sheet pans – I LOVE my set of steel sheet pans. They make such a difference in baking.