Lavender Mint Scones

The Studio garden is filled with an abundance of herbs, and most are thinking they need to flower right now. Once an herb goes to flower, it loses its lush abundance of leaves, and you end up with a leggy, stemmy, plant that wants to reproduce. This does not make for an abundant harvest!

To keep this from happening the plants pruned and flowers removed. But what to do with all these fresh tops? Why use them of course!! I usually dry the majority of them, but this year has been a strange growing year, so I have been using as much of the fresh as I can.

This is a quick and easy recipe that is sure to please everyone in your household and will definitely get your friends talking. My family happens to enjoy lavender flavor, but they are used to eating herbs. You can substitute any herbs or spices you have on hand. I had added some Lemon Balm to these as well, but not quite enough so they were missing the zing of lemon I had hoped for.

My family usually eats a bunch of these when they come out of the oven, slicing and adding butter. They are just as tasty the next day, so one batch does not last long at my house. I store them in an airtight container, unless glazed. If I glaze them, I will leave them on a platter with plastic wrap over them. They get eating quickly enough they don't dry out to much.

Lavender Mint Scones

 2 c. all-purpose flour (I use unbleached)

1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 c. butter (you can use margarine)

1 egg

3/4 c. vanilla yogurt

1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional, I use vanilla yogurt so I rarely add this)

1 T. fresh mint, minced

                                                                 1 1/2 tsp. dried lavender buds (if you use fresh, double this, so 3 tsp.)

 Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400°. Grease baking sheet.

2) In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients.

3) Cut in butter until mix resembles coarse cornmeal.

4) In a medium bowl, beat egg. Add in yogurt and herbs. Beat together. 

5) Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stirring until a soft dough forms. (This will be very sticky!)

6) Turn dough onto a floured bread board (your counter will work, but flour WELL, as this dough is very sticky!!). Knead dough by hand 10-12 times.

7) Place kneaded dough on baking sheet, patting into an 8" circle. Cut into 8 sections with a floured knife. Do not separate sections. (I use a round biscuit cutter to cut out scones.)

8) Bake 18-20 minutes (less if your create biscuit sized rounds), or until brown on the top.

9) Cool on rack. Separate sections when ready to serve.

10 ) Once cool, store uneaten scones in tightly covered container. They will dry out quickly!

Optional: You can add a glaze by brushing top of scones with heavy cream, and then sprinkling with sugar before baking. You can also mix heavy cream and powdered sugar to create a glaze to brush on after cooling if you would prefer.