Cherry Pop Tart Scones – Low-Calorie!

The perfect breakfast treat!

I LOVE cherries. It’s a bit of a problem. As soon as I catch sight of them at the farmer’s market each year, I go on a bit of a buying frenzy. Often that means that I end up with far more cherries than I can possibly eat before they go bad. So inevitably, I find myself researching recipes to find new and inventive ways of using them. Sort of like Bubba in Forrest Gump…cherry gumbo…cherry sandwiches…fried cherries. You get the drift.

As a treat one day…again at the farmer’s market…I had bought myself a cherry scone. It was delicious but with every bite I sensed (rightly so) that there was far more “good stuff” (butter, sugar, etc.) than I should be ingesting in a sitting (or a week). So I set out to make my own version, if not guilt-free, then at least guilt-lite. What I came up with were these delicious little beauties. As just 134 calories per scone, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee, and the kids love them too!

I sampled the first one fresh out of the oven, as one does. The taste was vaguely familiar. It wasn’t until I had started on my second one (for scientific purposes, of course), that I realized they reminded me of the cherry pop tarts I used to love as a kid. And so their name was born.

Start out by sifting your flour. I use whole wheat pastry flour for nearly all my baking. It is a good substitute for all-purpose flour, but can still produce a more dense baked good, so as a general rule of thumb, I sift it. A note about sifting and baking instructions, commas matter. If the recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, sifted. That means you measure out 1 cup of flour, sift it, and add it to the recipe. If the recipe calls for 1 cup of sifted flour, that means you sift some flour, measure out one cup of the sifted product, and add that to the recipe. In our case you want 2 1/2 cups of sifted flour. Any time you are measuring out flour, sifted or no, you should do it by scooping forkfuls into the measuring cup and gently leveling it off. Never by digging the measuring cup into the flour bin, you’ll end up with waaaaay more flour than you intended by packing it in that way.

Measure the sifted flour into a large mixing bowl. Add in the rest of the dry ingredients and whisk gently to blend. Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the frozen butter directly into the bowl with the dry ingredients. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! Yes, it would be easier to use slightly softer butter. Yes, it would be easier to use a pastry cutter. No, you should not do any of those things. Do this. Trust me. It creates the perfect dispersal of butter into each scone.

Using your fingers, gently work the butter into the dry ingredients. I do this at intervals as I am grating as it keeps you from having a giant butter ball in the middle of the bowl.

Gently fold in the cherries. If you don’t know what folding is, watch Schitt’s Creek. Then keep watching it because it is the greatest show of all time.

You can use fresh or frozen cherries. If they are frozen, you don’t need to defrost them. Just toss them right in. If they are fresh, just make sure they aren’t too juicy or the dough will be even less manageable than it already is (more on that later).

In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until smooth. Stir into the dry ingredients with a fork until just mixed.

Now we get to the messy bit. Fair warning, this is the messiest dough I’ve ever worked with. I looked like Edward Dough-hands by the time I finished. Sure, you could add more flour and make it easier, but you wouldn’t end up with the same great result, so take off any precious jewelry and dig in.

Flour your hands (to try to mitigate the carnage a bit) and form the dough into 2 balls (if your dough is like mine, you may need to spatula it off your hands, then wash and re-flour your hands before the next step). It’s worth it, I promise.

On a floured surface, and with a floured rolling pin, gently roll each ball out into a 7 inch circle.

Using a large kitchen knife, cut each circle into 8 slices.

*You’ll notice there are no pictures of that process. Given I am my own photographer, I opted to save my phone’s life and not try to snap pictures while covered in dough.

Place on a cookie sheet covered with silpat or parchment paper at least a couple inches apart.

Sprinkle with raw or sanding sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden.

Best served warm from the oven. To reheat, place in toaster oven for 5 minutes or so.