Sandy Springs Garden Club English Tea Scones

Several months ago, I was in an Atlanta area antique mall when I came across an undated but surely vintage cookbook from the Sandy Springs Garden Club here in Georgia. Because the book, titled "From the Garden to the Kitchen," included a chapter on "Beverages and Tea Time," and because it had a unique recipe for what they called English Tea Scones, I got the book. Over the weekend, I decided it was a good time to try the "scones."

I say "scones" because, in reality, these are more of what I would call Baked Fried Pies. And boy oh boy, are they good, quite a fine little something to serve alongside tea!

Here's a picture of the original recipe, which you should be able to double click and read. Scones whose ingredients consist merely of butter, cream cheese and flour? Hmmm.

Still, I stirred up the dough into walnut-sized pieces and we all chilled for two hours.

Then came the fun part, adding the different flavors of jam and preserves. I started with strawberry jam, then moved on to blueberry, lemon curd and finally the one with fig preserves shown here.

My favorite part of making these was fluting the edges with a fork. I can't make most pies and pastries worth a toot, but so far these "English Tea Scones" were working up just fine, with one minor exception. Strawberry jam ran out of the first two scones I baked (I knew better than to try the whole batch at once), so although they were delicious, they weren't very pretty. I adjusted the amount of jam from 1 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon, and that worked out perfectly for the blueberry and lemon curd "scones" I enjoyed with a cup of Earl Grey.

What really surprised me was how flaky the "scone's" crust was! Can you see the little flakes? I am here to tell you that flaky crust + hot lemon curd = 2 die 4. So here's the recipe as I made it, just in case you're tempted to try these yourself. Enjoy!

Sandy Springs Garden Club English Tea Scones

1 stick unsalted butter
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
Small amounts of jam, preserves or lemon curd

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Allow butter and cream cheese to reach room temperature or warm in microwave for a few seconds. Combine butter and cream cheese with flour and roll into walnut-sized balls. Place on waxed paper and let chill in refrigerator for 2 hours. Then, roll out each piece of dough into a circle about 3 to 3-1/2 inches in diameter. Add 1/2 teaspoon of desired jam or preserves to center of dough, fold over and crimp edges with a fork. Bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes, just until edges begin to brown. Slightly cool before serving. Yields 15 English Tea Scones.