Sweet white chocolate, warm blueberries, and strawberry cream cheese frosting come together to create a scone that tastes likes the perfect summer day. The patriotic colors of this treat are perfect to bring along to your summer festivities.
The fourth of July is not my favorite holiday. I'm not a fan of being outside in the Texas summer heat and loud noises. Konrad loves the holiday and always volunteers to set up the fireworks show at Frontier Camp. He watches it from where the fireworks are being set off in full firefighter gear. Sitting alone watching loud fireworks while I sweat my shirt out hasn't ramped up my love for the holiday. I am not the type to celebrate the holiday as if I live my life bleeding patriotism. My identity is in my faith and beliefs- not where I was born. The fourth of July celebrates the day that the Second Continental Congress declared their independence from Great Britain and more importantly, their freedoms and liberties.
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
This declaration was followed by another 7 years of the Revolutionary War. The claims made did not apply to a large part of the population. Click here to read about voting history in the United States. It wasn't until June 19th, 1865 that marked an end of slavery and as we all know, still did NOT guarantee the same liberties and rights. 144 years later, women finally won the right to vote. Other minorities still had years of struggle ahead before winning their right to vote. Even today we are still seeing laws change that affect voting rights. I think it is important to use today as a day to reflect on an ideal declaration that is still not fully realized today. National pride is good, blind dedication is not. We should never let go of humility so we can see our country's flaws and continue to work towards actualizing the statements made 247 years ago.
*History lesson over*
Every year since I was a young girl, we would make a red white and blue cookie cake for the fourth of July. A delicious dessert reserved for only one day of the year. I made it twice in the month of June when I remembered I'm an adult with my own family. I can break old traditions and celebrate differently than those before me. Wanting to avoid making the delicious cookie cake a third time, but still wanting to create a festive treat, I decided to come up with a new red white and blue themed recipe.
Blueberries are in season during this time of year and our own blueberry bushes have been producing a mixture of sweet and tart spheres. I highly recommend supporting a local organic blueberry farm if you have one in your area. It's a fun way to spend the morning for the whole family, and you walk away with gallons of berries to turn into jam and more fun experiences.
I found a small package of freeze dried strawberry slices at HEB that I used to flavor and color the frosting recipe along with cream cheese. If you find freeze dried strawberry powder, that works great and saves you the step of powdering the strawberries yourself. Unfortunately, I bought only one small package, and the color came out light pink. Feel free to double or even triple the amount of strawberry powder I have listed in the recipe to get a bolder red color. You will need to add small splashes of milk to your frosting until it gets to a thick drizzle consistency. I always have strawberries on hand and sliced up one to top my scone and OH MY. So good! If you choose to decorate your scones with strawberry slices, I recommend slicing and adding the berries just before serving so they have the freshest taste and presentation.
Konrad is officially working on duck calls full time- our dream of making Golden Acres a full time job is here! It's been so nice to have him around and I am proud of the work he is doing to support our family. Ivy May and I enjoy making treats like these scones to take to him while he's working in the shop. He loves the opportunity to step out of the usual grind to create a unique call in theme with the holiday. I had to throw in a couple pictures of our red white and blue creations displayed together! You can buy the adult, youth, and toddler duck call shirts in our Lifestyle section of our store.
Red White & Blueberry Scones
Makes 8 scones
Prep time: 40 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup), frozen
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
1/2 cup blueberries
1.5 oz white chocolate (chopped)
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
3 TBS milk
2 oz cream cheese (softened)
.26oz of freeze dried strawberries (double this if you want the icing to be more red than my pictures show)
Directions
In a medium mixing bowl. Combine sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
In a small bowl mix together egg and sour cream until fully combined.
Grate butter and cut it into the dough. It's important to keep butter solid and cold through the entire process- may need to pause and set it in the freezer depending on how warm your environment is.
Add the blueberries.
Gently stir the sour cream egg mixture into the dough. It will seem too dry, just continue to mix until you can pull it from the bowl and set it on the counter as a complete ball.
Shape dough into a circle 7-8 inches in diameter and 3/4 in thick. Cut like a pie into 8 equal triangles.
Flash freeze on a baking sheet before transferring them to a gallon size bag.
If your freeze dried strawberries are not in powdered form, go ahead and crush them into a fine powder.
Combine the strawberry powder, softened cream cheese, and milk in a mixing bowl and beat with a handheld mixer or immersion blender.
Slowly beat in the 1.75 cups of powdered sugar, until its smooth and creamy. Add more milk or strawberry powder if necessary for your desired color and consistency.
Bake scones from frozen for 400 degrees for 17 minutes. If baking fresh/unfrozen, set timer to check them by 12 minutes. Done when getting gold color and no longer looks doughy. Time may differ depending on the oven so keep an eye out near the end.
When scones are done, allow to cool for about 3 minutes before drizzling your frosting topping.
Optional: melt additional white chocolate for drizzling on top of the scones.
Additional decoration ideas: Dye some of the white chocolate red and some of it blue and decorate the scones by drizzling, dipping, or marbling the red white and blue white chocolates. Dip fresh strawberries whole or sliced in the white chocolate and serve on top or alongside the scones. There are many different ideas to make a beautiful presentation! If you make these, I would love to see your pictures and hear any comments! Tag us on IG @goldenacrescustomcalls