Gingerbread Scones

The first time I made these, I followed someone else's recipe, and despite my mother stealing half the batch and spiriting it away to the inner depths of her desk at work, I was unhappy with them. They were super dry, even for a scone, and half burnt.  Not one of my best kitchen moments. So, I returned to the original recipe, found while searching the Internets, and made some changes to measurements and directions and ingredients, and wallah! These are pretty much some of the best scones I have ever had.  They have enough dryness to be a scone, and enough moistness to be awesome.  They taste almost like molasses cookies, but a little ginger-ier. A little tricky, but absolutely worth the mess!

2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup (1 stick) cold, margarine
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup milk
1 egg, separated

Preheat oven to 375F

Combine 1 1/2 cup flour with brown sugar, ginger, soda, salt, cinnamon and mix well.

Cut cold, hard margarine into chunks and add to mix. Knead into a dry, crumbly dough. Kind of like crumb topping. This is my favorite part, because I like to play with my food.

In a separate bowl, mix together molasses, milk and egg yolk. I find doing molasses first, then pouring milk into the measuring pitcher (pitcher?  it's not a cup?) to rinse it out works best.  Stir in yolk last.  Slowly add to dry mix, about 1.4th at a time, and stir in well. Should be a soft , sloppy dough with tiny buttery bits.

Liberally sprinkle surface with about 1/4 cup flour and empty onto flour. Seriously, be generous.  This is a sloppy mess you have, and as long as you stay under 2 cups of flour you're doing fine. Sprinkle some remaining flour over, so you can touch it, and knead, adding flour as needed, until dough is just handle-able. Still a tad wet. Pat into circle and cut into 8 "pie" pieces. I use a pizza cutter.

Grease cookie sheet well. Place pieces with room on sheet. I use a spatula to scoop them up, so they keep their shape.

Beat egg white until foamy, and brush on scones. Sprinkle with granulated sugar or whatever pretty sugar sprinkle you like.

Bake 8-15 min, depending on oven. Will become golden. Toothpick test works great.

Bon Appetite!