I’d like to shoutout my best friend from college, who introduced me to Manchego cheese. We used to get blocks of it at the Trader Joe’s near campus for movie night snacks. Manchego cheese and crackers, maybe a fruit, and… not a lot else. What can I say, that’s just crazy life of college students – unbalanced meals!! The freedom of adulthood – cheese for dinner and Shrek on the TV! “We can do anything we want, we’re college students!”
Anyways, Manchego became my favorite cheese. It’s mild but not boring, hard by not crumbly. Perfect on crackers. Or in a scone!
These were supposed to have figs in them, but I couldn’t find any figs – fresh or dried – and didn’t want to keep going to stores just to get figs. I’m not 100% sure I even like figs. I’m sure I’d be find with them in something like this, but I haven’t ever just eaten a fig. I don’t love Fig Newtons. So I need my fig intake to be tempered by another flavor.
The dates worked perfectly well in these scones. A sweet-but-not-too-sweet fruit element that pairs well with cheese. I think the best bites of these scones were when you got a date chunk. But the ones that were just cheesy were definitely alright too.
I also think these were great fresh out of the oven – warm and crumbly, butter melting as soon as it touches the scone. The ideal way to eat a scone.
Thank you to my family for having these for lunch, even if it’s a bit of an odd lunch choice. It’s not a ridiculous lunch choice. It’s actually the ideal scone to have with your lunch, if you’re going to have one. Just slightly different from usual scone programming. But you know what? Sometimes it’s okay to switch up the routine!
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PinDescription
Make 8 scones
Ingredients
- 1 cup cake flour (or, 14 tablespoons all-purpose flour + 2 tablespoons cornstarch)
- 1 cup flour
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 stick butter, cold
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- ½ cup figs or dates (dried or fresh), chopped
- 1 ½ cups Manchego, shredded
- Sugar-in-the-raw for top texture
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350F and grease a baking sheet.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda to combine. Grate cold stick of butter over the bowl in full, then mix by hand until small pea size clusters form.
- In a small bowl, mix buttermilk and egg together and pour all but ¼ cup over flour mixture, tossing the dries and the wets to combine. Toss in the dates or figs and shredded Manchego and incorporate them. At this point, your dough should look wet but still shaggy. Let dough sit for 5 minutes, it will hydrate on its own!
- Pop the dough out onto the baking sheet and pat into a round loaf as tall or as flat as you want your scone. Using a long knife or bench scraper, cut the round into triangles as you would a pizza pie. Use an offset spatula to separate the triangles slightly so hot air and get through and caramelize all edges.
- Brush or massage reserved eggy butter milk over the surface and edges of each triangle. Sprinkle as much sugar-in-the-raw as you like.
- Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown on the edges. Let cool slightly but don’t wait too long, scones are meant to be eaten warm and fresh (freeze the dough or a portion of the dough if you don’t plan on devouring with friends/family today)!
Notes
From Bake Club