Peach and Cherry Scone Shortcake, a Secret Revealed & a Surprise Give Away!

Before I share the "secret" I want to tell you about the "surprise"; I reached 100 Followers this week and so I'm celebrating with a give away drawing for my readers - a year's supply of amazing Maldon Sea Salt! Check it out here!

Today is "reveal" day for The Secret Recipe Club, a fun bloggers game that I play, along with hundreds of other bloggers..................
The rules are simple; each blogger is assigned another blog to check out and choose a recipe to prepare and share. The bloggers are allowed to adapt the recipe and add their own interpretations. All the bloggers post their secret assignment on the same day (today) at the same time. It's fun to see the unique renditions of the original recipes!

My assignment was a blog called The Kitchen Witch by Rhonda. This blog has a wide range of recipes from soup to nuts (literally!). Rhonda describes herself as an above average home cook and an avid motorcycle rider. If you check out her blog, you'll discover she has a great sense of humor. She is also mom to six children - wow, how does she do it? It is obvious that Rhonda really enjoys cooking and as I perused through her recipes, I had some difficulty deciding which to choose. I am quite a sucker for scones though, and when I saw her delicious recipe for Alton Brown's Scones, I knew it was a done deal!

I actually made these scones twice. The first time I gave them as a special treat to a friend. Of course I did sample a crumb the biggest scone (it looked like a mistake to me and anyway, I would hate to give something away and not be sure that it was good, someone has to be the tester!) :) and when I discovered how delicious they were, I decided to make another batch and serve them for dessert with some fresh peaches. They made a fabulous Peach and Cherry Scone Shortcake (I substituted cherries for the dried cranberries in the original recipe)! Whether you serve these yummy scones for breakfast, for a fabulous midday snack or dress them up with fresh fruit for dessert, you can't really go wrong!

Alton Brown's Scones

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup cream
1 egg
Handful dried currants or dried cranberries (I used 1/2 cup dried cherries)

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix well. Cut in butter and shortening. In a separate bowl, combine cream with beaten egg then add to dry ingredients. Stir in fruit. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll dough out and cut into biscuit size rounds.  (I formed mine into a circle, about 6-7 inches in diameter, and then cut into wedges, with a knife dipped in flour, like a pie.) Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Note:

For  the shortcake,  I brushed the unbaked scones with a bit of cream and then sprinkled them with Demerara sugar and baked as directed. I let the scones cool, then sliced them and filled them with sliced peaches mixed with a little sugar and freshly whipped cream. Yum!

PRINTABLE RECIPE