It doesn’t happen very often lately, but one afternoon this summer (while taking a well deserved personal day from work), I was home alone and free to do what ever I wanted. That consisted of a little cleaning, I lot of the job hunting and watching a few cooking shows that I normally don’t see because they are on during the day. One of the shows that I had the pleasure of watching was Giadi at Home. She talked of baking these apricot & salami scones for a friend’s son’s bake sale at school. Honestly, I found the thought of mixing apricots, salami and dough together quite off-putting, but the idea stuck with me for a while.
Finally, when trying to figure out what to make for a pot luck baby shower where the mom to be didn’t have a sweet tooth, I just had to check it out. And man, am I glad I did. I was so wrong on the off-putting thing. The sweet and salty combo is perfect for in the morning with coffee or for an afternoon treat or as it turns out, a baby shower. The dough is soft on the inside, but has a wonderful crunch on the outside…even though they’re not small, it’s hard to have just one.
This recipe is an adaptation to Giada’s recipe. I went to the store with the intention to copy the recipe exact, but her recipe calls for boxed plain scone mix and the store I was at only had cinnamon raisin or berry scone mixes and I’m thinking neither would work to well with the rest of the ingredients. So, here it goes…
Apricot & Salami Scones
Ingredients:
- 2 Cups flour
- 3 Tbls sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1 Tbsl dry thyme or 2 Tbls fresh thyme leaves
- 1/2 Cup (1 stick) butter, plus more for greasing the pans
- 20 dried apricots, cut into 1/3 inch pieces (approx 1 cup)
- 6 oz salami, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 Cup buttermilk, chilled
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread some butter on two baking/cookie sheet pans and set aside.
- Take stick of butter and chop finely into little pieces. Place all pieces in a small bowl and put in fridge to keep chilled until you need them.
- Chop both dried apricots and salami and set aside until the batter is ready.
- Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cream of tartar, baking soda and thyme in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Using a pastry blender or a fork, incorporate all of the butter into the flour mixture. Depending on the day, the mixture could be too dry and you may need to add up to another 1/4 cup butter. If this is the case, slowly add a little bits of chopped up butter to the mix, small portions at a time until everything is incorporated together and there is no dry mixture at the bottom of the bowl.
- Using a large mixing spoon, add the apricots and salami to the flour/butter mixture until they are evenly spread throughout the mix. Then add the buttermilk and stir with same spoon until the dry mix is saturated.
- Using a 1/3 measuring cup, scoop the mix onto the pre-greased baking sheets with approx 2 inches between each scone.
- Bake one pan at a time for 16-18 minutes, or until the tops start to brown slightly. When the scones come out of the oven, let them sit on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Approximately 20 minutes.
- Serve with apricot jam or butter. Enjoy anytime!!!
Happy Baking!
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