Click here to view recipe.
**The draft of this blog post was edited (and improved!) by my oldest grandson and culinary student, Isaiah Max Kopelovich.
Here is yet another scone and baking recipe my sister Kay bragged about on our weekly sisters Zoom call. The three “Klass girls” virtually talk every Sunday night for two hours. Sadly, our annual Sisters trip and several family weddings have been canceled this year, so this is the best we can do. Our husbands are all perplexed about what we could possibly say during this time, but we never seem to run out of conversation. And topics during these virtual gab sessions include recipes, food, phases of reopening, books we have read, political stunts, grandchildren, cousins…you can see that we never run out of small talk.
Food and menus and new recipes are always at the top of the agenda since all three of us cook incessantly. When Kay raved about these scones, I poo-pooed them, but a few weeks later when she mentioned that these were her favorites, I caved and tried them. At this moment in time, this recipe just happens to be my favorite as well.
The original recipe recommended keeping your hands and the counter floured well, so the scones are able to be transferred from bowl to cookie sheet, but I formed a ball of the dough then plopped it down without adding any flour onto my trusty silicone mat, made the scones there and used a small spatula to put them on the parchment-lined cookie sheet! If you don’t already own a silicone mat, this is yet another reason to buy one!
Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen 2011)
Makes 9
Ingredients
- 1 cup (120 grams) white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder, sifted (mine always has lumps)
- ¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar (remove 2 tsp from the measuring cup)
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) cold salted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 heaping cup (136 grams or 4 ¾ ounces) fresh raspberries
- ¾ cup (189 grams) whole milk ricotta
- ⅓ cup (79 ml) heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons coarse raw sugar to top (demarada)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In the bottom of a large wide bowl, whisk flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt together.
With a pastry blender: Add the butter and use the pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour mixture until the biggest pieces are the size of small peas. Toss in raspberries and mix with your spatula.
Whisk the ricotta and heavy cream together in a smaller bowl, then pour into the large bowl containing everything else to form a dough with a flexible spatula. Using your hands, gently knead dough so it forms a ball and until all the flour is incorporated. You can do all of this right in the bottom of the bowl. The raspberries will mush up a bit.
Once you form a ball, quickly transfer the dough to a silicone mat. Pat it into a 7-inch square about 1-inch tall. Sprinkle the top with the raw sugar and gently press into the dough. With a large knife, cut the dough into thirds horizontally, and then thirds vertically, so that you are left with nine almost even squares of dough. Transfer the scones to the prepared baking sheet with a spatula.
Bake the scones for about 15 minutes, until lightly golden at the edges. Cool on the cookie sheet for two minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. It’s best to cool for about 15 minutes before eating them. If you have some left, cool them completely then store in a well-sealed container or zip lock bag.
For your freezer: During raspberry season, I take advantage and make a lot of these and bake them as needed. I form the scones and cut them, then I put them on the parchment-lined sheet and freeze them raw. Once they are frozen solid, I transfer them to a freezer bag. When you feel like a fresh scone, preheat the oven and put the frozen square(s) on a parchment-lined sheet. You do not need to defrost the frozen scones. Bake them for 17-19 minutes.