This is my hybridization of
two
different
King Arthur Flour recipes. I make this pretty
often as a thing to take to gatherings or just to have for a snack. See also
the buttermilk scones. As there, a good way to
work with butter is to freeze it and then grate it.
I’ve used a few different cheeses here to various effect, cheddar and swiss both
work pretty well. The cumin is courtesy of a friend who was reading a bunch of
Pliny the Elder and found him suggesting making breads flavoured with cumin
in order to reduce the Roman dependence on imported pepper. Well. There’s still
pepper in this recipe so Pliny would not approve but he was wrong about a lot
of things. Perhaps most things!
The cheese makes this dough harder to layer and fold than a plain scone so do
what you can. I have more or less abandoned circular scones to the realm of
shape packing problems and now I just roll out my dough and slice it with a knife.
You get a decent number of crisp rectangular scones and also the more dialectical
pieces towards the edges.