The Flicker Haven Farm Files-Orange Cream Sourdough Discard Scones

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Well, it was that time of the week again. Actually it was a day late. Poor Buford my sourdough starter might never recover from being fed one day late! The horror!

Pathetic attempt at dramatics aside, I had decided the night before what I was going to do with the sourdough discard when I fed the beast. Inspiration struck me as my gaze fell upon the massive bag of oranges I bought from Costco on Tuesday.

That's right, I made some orange cream sourdough discard scones this morning.

And they smelled so delectable, it's a shame I am abstaining from all things gluten this week. Most sad.

But, the hubs got the best end of that no-gluten partaking stick. So no sadness here. Nay! The Hawaiian's countenance glowed with a delighted light when I handed him a plate with a warm, fresh from the oven buttered scone this morning!

But, I get ahead of myself.

The recipe for sourdough discard scones is pretty universal. As I am out of orange extract, I subbed vanilla extract in my recipe development sesh. If and when I make these again, I will most definitely add orange extract in place of the vanilla.

However, the resulting product was so yummy looking! The texture was fluffy and the crumb was perfect, and the hubs absolutely devoured the thing, so I think these may be a baking win!

Anyway, here is the recipe, I am sure you will all be happy if I just get to the point.

Orange Cream Sourdough Discard Scones

Dry Ingredients

2 cups of all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 TBPS baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup very cold unsalted butter
zest of 1 orange

Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup sourdough discard
4 TBSP heavy cream
2 TBSP fresh squeezed orange juice (1/2 an orange)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Measure and add the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl, mix together. Using a cheese grater, grate butter into the dry ingredients, give the whole thing a mix to coat the butter in the flour mixture, and then using a pastry cutter, cut the mixture until it resembles fish tank gravel in texture.

Next add all wet ingredients to the bowl, mix until just combined, adding more cream a Tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together in a ball. Don't overwork the dough!

Place dough on lightly floured surface and pat out into a 6-8 inch diameter circle. Cut into eight triangles.

Place triangles on a parchment-lined baking sheet, using a pastry brush, brush the tops with cold heavy cream, sprinkle them with sugar, and pop into a preheated to 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for 21-26 minutes depending on your oven and thickness of your scones. They are usually done when they spring a bit when you touch them and have a nice toasty hint of brown patina.

Devour!

And that my friends is the scones.

Aside from that, things have been pretty almost winter like here on the homestead. The hubs has been puttering around putting implements in the equipment shed for the winter. He also hauled over a pretty massive Bull pine log to mill for projects and checked out the chicken's heated waterer for me as it seems to not be working as well as it should.

Me, aside from scone crafting, I have been doing a ton of school work, since it is finals week. After tomorrow or Saturday I should be done for the semester. I'm actually in a bit of awe about that, I can't quite believe the Fall semester is gone. Honestly I am ready for a bit of a break.

Because it's almost Christmas and I have baking to do! Plus, there's garden planning to do. Over break I want to retrofit my greenhouse into a planting shed now that I have the hoop house to grow crops in on a larger scale. I will be ripping out the beds, installing shelves, making a potting bench, and organizing everything because seed starting time is just around the corner. Instead of killing myself in the theme park bakery this year, I plan on spending my summer subsistence gardening, raising a batch of red broilers, a couple turkeys, and pigs are making a comeback on the farm this year.

It's going to be a glorious summer.

Which is why, I will be planning all winter😉

And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still slightly annoyed, along with the author, at Jojo's repeated insolent behavior towards the Christmas tree iPhone. The text divider image was made in Canva.