New York Times

Joanne Chang’s Maple-Blueberry Scones

These scones, created by Joanne Chang for her Flour Bakery & Cafe in Boston, are studded with fresh blueberries, sweetened with maple syrup and made with a blend of whole-wheat and all-purpose flours — but don’t think of them as health food. They’ve also got crème fraîche and plenty of butter. They’re big. They’re glazed. And they’ve got a singular texture: tender, like a layer cake, but also flaky, like a traditional scone. It wasn’t until I made them myself that I realized that their texture is different because the technique is different: Most scone recipes call for the butter to be rubbed into the flour mixture until it’s coated with flour. In Ms. Chang’s recipe, half the butter gets this treatment, which makes the scones characteristically flaky. The other half of the butter is beaten into the dry ingredients so that it becomes the coating for the flour, making the scones tender.