Peach Jam Scones | Project Pastry Queen

I was really excited when Josie chose Peach Jam Scones for this week’s recipe. You see, when Shawnda and I went to Rebecca’s cooking class in Austin, she actually made this recipe for us and it was really good! I only took a bite during class & took the rest home to share & of course that meant it disappeared quickly and I’ve been craving more since!

Rebecca made a confession in that class: she never ever uses a food processor for this kind of stuff. She was advised to adapt the recipes using something like a food processor so her recipes were more friendly for the home cook but she actually does it all by hand; she likes the feel of the dough and insists its the only way to do it. Depending upon my mood, I like to work with dough by hand as well but sometimes I just don’t want to be messy. The recipe below is written for a food processor, but you can definitely mix it all up by hand in a bowl. You want to use really light hands though to keep from over working the dough and handle it as little as possible so the butter doesn’t melt. Since I have warm hands, I use a pastry cutter instead of using my hands & I chill the scones for 10-15 minutes before putting in the oven. Unless you’ve got company coming, I’d recommend at least halving the recipe (I actually made 1/3 of the original recipe) and/or freezing unbaked scones for later use!

Peach Jam Scones
Yields 8 very large scones

6 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
1 1/2 – 2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup high quality peach jam
3 fresh peaches, pitted & sliced (or a 8 oz. pkg frozen peaches, defrosted & drained)

Preheat oven to 425°F. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process the flour, 1 cup of sugar, the baking powder and salt for about 30 seconds. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes and add it to the flour mixture. Pulse about 15 times, until the butter-flour mixture is crumbly. With the processor running, slowly pour 1 1/2 cups buttermilk through the feed tube. Stop the processor as soon as the buttermilk has been added. If the dough has begun to stick together in a ball, remove it. Otherwise, add buttermilk a Tablespoon at a time and pulse until dough begins to clump up and form a ball.

Place the dough on a lightly floured flat surface. Pat dough into a 1/4-inch-thick rectangle, about 12×10 inches. Spread a thin layer of jam length-wise over half the dough and arrange the peach slices in a single layer on top of the jam. Fold the plain dough over the peaches making a 12 by 5-inch rectangle with the jam & peaches inside. Cut into 8 triangles and sprinkle the top with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar.

Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather

Tagged as: Brunch, peaches