Almond-Raisin Scones

The other day at work, our Managed Care office ordered lunch for a meeting. This is a very common occurence. We at Med3000 LOVE our food. We have a 20 minute meeting and we order lunch. A client is coming in and we order lunch. It's Monday afternoon and we order lunch. It's a beautiful thing. Anyway, the other day we ordered from a local deli/bakery that we use quite often. This particular day we had ordered their scones along with lunch. They were TO DIE FOR!!! So chewy, moist, not too sweet not too dry. Ohhhh, they were perfection with sugar (litterally) on top. So I decided to bake scones. :)

This is a very simple recipe. Even shaping it into the 'dome' was easy enough:

Slicing was easy.....:Looking at the finished product, easy....:

All right all right. Here's the recipe. Not quite what I had from the bakery the other day, but still very good and chewy, not at all dry!!!

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 c. granulated sugar*
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 c. butter, softened and chopped
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 Large egg
1/2 c. raisins*
1 tsp. almond extract*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, blend flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well. Add chopped butter and using a pastry blender or two knives scissor-fashion, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add raisins and blend well.

In small bowl, mix the buttermilk, egg, and almond extract. Add to the flour mixture.

Knead dough 12-15 times until well combined and smooth.

Shape into 8-inch dome. Using a serrated knife, score the dough into 8 wedges (don't cut all the way through).

Bake 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven an brush with "icing" while still warm.

Icing: mix 2TBS. OJ and 4TBS. granulated sugar


**A few notes**
This recipe calls for dates instead of raisins. I like raisins better so switched them out. It also calls for only 2 TBS. of sugar in the dough. I increased it to 1/4 of a cup. I like it a little sweeter. It calls for orange peel, but didn't have any oranges on hand so added the almond extract to the buttermilk.

Also, it took much longer than the 15 minutes to cook. I would say at least 25 minutes, but keep a close eye on it.

Enjoy!!