The Best Scones in the World

For Easter this year, my church wanted to serve scones for Soul Cafe. Two thousand scones, to be exact. And thanks to everyone's help, we made two thousand one hundred and twelve!

Thankfully, one of my good friend, James, has the best scone recipe in the world, which we used to make sweet blueberry scones and savory candied bacon, cheese, corn, and scallion scones. Guess which ones were more popular....

The Best Scones in the World (courtesy of James W. Cheng)
makes ~100 scones

8 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup chopped candied bacon*
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 cup chopped scallions
1 quart heavy cream

Preheat oven to 375°F.

*To make candied bacon, sprinkle brown sugar over bacon slices and bake at 375°F until crisp.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces and then press into the dry mixture until the texture is like corn meal. Mix in the bacon, corn, cheese, and scallions.

Add heavy cream and mix just enough to form a dough. If you have the time, stick this back in the fridge to chill.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto the sheet, leaving at least 1" between scones. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

To make the blueberry scones, just substitute 3 cups of frozen blueberries for the bacon, corn, cheese, and scallions. Ideally, we'd have glazed the blueberry scones with a lemon glaze, but there wasn't enough time. According to one Family Ministry pastor, however, they were still super delicious. =)

We made the scones pretty small because we wanted to be able to feed everyone, but you could definitely double the size of these if you wanted larger scones. Just make sure you increase the baking time appropriately.