These yummy breakfast treats are full of goodies in every bite. Loaded with fresh pieces of orange, craisins, blond raisins, walnuts and orange juice, they are soooooo good! Two keys to making these taste so good: use actual pieces of orange in the dough and soak the raisins and craisins in boiling water so they stay plump and juicy even after they are baked in these breakfast treats. You are gonna love these!
We love to add a drizzle of simple orange juice icing made with just orange juice and powdered sugar to give them a little extra sweet touch. And, besides, they look so pretty this way, too! You can easily serve them without icing, and they’ll be delicious, but we do love the icing on these.
It takes a little time to remove the white membrane from the orange sections, but if the membrane doesn’t bother you, then simply peel the oranges and cut them into bite-sized pieces and use them just the way they are.
We have not made this dish with fresh cranberries, even though we used fresh cranberries as garnish in the photo, but that is on our list of things to try. If you decide to make them with fresh or frozen cranberries, please leave a comment to let us know how they turned out! Fresh cranberries freeze very well, but can be hard to find in the off-season. We recommend storing up on them in the fall when they are readily available and freezing them until you’re ready to use them. This way, you can barbecue turkeys and make cranberry sauce all year long, too!
Cranberry-Orange Scones with Golden Raisins, Walnuts & Orange Juice Icing
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 6 tbsp. light brown sugar
- 4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 4 oz. butter, cold and cut into small pieces equivalent to 1 stick or 8 tablespoons
- 1/4 cup cream or half and half
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
- 1/2 cup golden raisins
- 1/2 cup fresh orange pulp (peel orange and remove pulp from the white membrane), cut into small pieces
- 3/4 cup walnuts, broken into bite-sized pieces
Orange Juice Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. orange juice (+/- depending upon how thick you like your icing)
Instructions
Preparing the fruit
- Place dried cranberries and blond raisins in a bowl. Pour boiling water over them just enough to cover the fruit. Allow to sit for 30 minutes. Strain off water through a sieve, and squeeze out any excess water by pressing down on the fruit in the sieve.
- Peel the orange, and cut it into quarters or eighths. Remove as much of the white membrane as you can, and cut the oranges into small bite-sized pieces.
Making the Scones
- Preheat oven to 425° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry cutter or cold fingertips, cut the butter into the flour until well-blended and the butter is reduced to tiny pea-sized pieces. Stir in cranberries, golden raisins, fresh orange pieces and walnuts. Mix well.
- Mix orange juice with the cream (or half and half) and stir into the dry mixture. Using a fork, mix until well-blended. Form dough into a ball.
- Place the dough ball on a floured cutting board or pastry cloth and roll out into a 9-inch round. Cut the round into 8 even triangular scones.
- Transfer scones onto prepared baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges just begin to brown and centers feel done when you touch them with your finger.
- Remove from oven and cool completely on the tray or on a cooling rack.
- When completely cool, drizzle icing over the tops of each scone.
- You can serve them immediately or they also freeze very well for several weeks. If you plan to freeze them, make sure the icing is dried before you seal them in the baggies or plastic containers to freeze them.
Orange Juice Icing
- Mix powdered sugar and orange juice and blend until smooth. If you need to adjust the icing because it is too thick or too thin to drizzle over the scones, simply add a little more powdered sugar or orange juice as needed.
I never tried making scones. This recipe sounds amazing and they don’t look dry. I would try this recipe for sure.
Mariela, thank you so much! They are super easy to make! You’ll be making amazing scones in no time:) We use the same basic recipe for all of our scones variations, and that helps so much when we want to expand the flavor profiles using different fruits, nuts and flavorings.