Take out butter to soften on the counter. Ideally, you should put the butter on the counter half an hour to an hour before you plan on making the scones. That way, it has time to soften. If you don’t have time to let it soften, cut it into 1/2” cubes and leave it on the counter (cubing will expose more surface area to the air and speed up softening) or on top of the oven:

and preheat your oven to 400F.

Don’t dip your measuring cup directly into the flour! Doing so will actually give you too much flour, resulting in heavy scones.

Keep whisking until you feel that the top layer of flour has “risen” just a little bit (due to the added air inside the flour) and feels much lighter as you whisk it. It should even look lighter, and the flour should be separated into smaller, more even clumps:

It’s almost like sifting the flour, except we don’t want to get a sifter out for scones. That would make scones that were too finely textured and taste more like a low-sugar cupcake.

Now that you’ve whisked the flour, spoon it into a 1 cup measuring cup until you’ve filled it. Sure, it will take awhile to fill up the cup spoonful by spoonful, but it’s worth it:

Now you need to even out the flour into a level cup. Drag the flat, non-serrated edge of a butterknife back and forth across the cup until you have a level cup. At first, you’ll be pushing the extra flour that rises above the measuring cup into the parts of the cup that don’t have much flour:

After a few passes, you’ll turn out a more level surface:

Finally, drag the knife all the way across the cup. You’re done!

Dump in the bowl and repeat in order to have 2 cups of flour in the bowl.

Next, add 1/3 cup sugar to the flour. You can just “dip” the measuring cup directly into the sugar container this time, but make sure to level it with the back of a butterknife:

(Did you note the clump of sugar in the measuring cup? Once I dumped the sugar into the bowl, I broke the clump with my fingers so it wouldn’t make a sugary pocket in the scone.)

Then, add your leaveners and your salt. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. (Make sure to measure this stuff not over the mixing bowl, but instead on top of the counter. That way, you don’t overmeasure something and spill it into your flour and sugar. Also, use the butterknife trick to measure the ingredients accurately.)

Next, whisk the dry ingredients together to mix up the leaveners, salt, sugar, and flour evenly. Make sure to integrate the baking powder and soda especially well:

Your one stick of butter should have been out on the counter for awhile now. Cut the butter into 1/2” to 1” cubes and add to dry ingredients:

Take out your pastry blender (OR, if you don’t have one, just use a fork) and use it to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture. If the pastry blender handle seems to roll over in your hand (and it often will), tighten the screws with a Philips head screwdriver:

You can just hack away at the butter, and that will work fine, but I have a specific method: I use the blender to “scrape down” the sides of the bowl.

To scrape down the bowl, hold the blender straight up (perpendicular to the counter). Place the blender blades so that they touch the inside of the bowl, slightly above the mixture. Bring the blender down into the mixture, making sure that the blades touch the bowl at all times:

Continue to move the blender downwards into the dough, making sure that the blades touch the bowl at all times:

Bring the blender to the center and bottom of the bowl, so it’s now horizontal (parallel to the counter):

Rotate the bowl 30 degrees or so, and repeat the scraping. Rotate and scrape until the butter is well-incorporated in pea-sized pieces.

You’ll need to remove butter from the blades from time to time, when you notice that a big piece is stuck and won’t move. Usually, when the pastry blender has ceased to do its work (when you notice that the butter’s not getting any smaller), I start using a fork instead. The fork has finer tines than the blender and will help you make sure the butter is well blended, especially at the sides of the bowl:

You can stop when you see that the butter is pea-sized:

The following picture shows a mixture is not quite done: sure, the butter is pea-sized (in fact, it looks more like sand than clumps of butter—this is really good—the finer the mixture you get, the lighter the scone), but it is streaky. You can discern the yellow parts of the mixture (that have lots of butter in them) and whiter parts of the mixture (without enough butter):

Keep mixing until you have a mixture that’s even in color, a light yellow all around, with as few big clumps of butter as possible:

Mix well:

Add 1/2 cup white chocolate chips:

Mix well:

Make sure to blend the chips and craisins evenly (it’s especially hard to get them incorporated at the bottom).

In a small bowl, combine 1 egg and 1/2 cup sour cream. Mix lightly with whisk (don’t spend more than 1 minute whisking them).

If you want to use extract, add 2 tsp of it now:

Use a spoon or spatula to add the sour cream mixture to the flour mixture:

Use your spatula to mix the wet and dry ingredients into a dough. Mix vigorously with the spatula (use that elbow grease my mom keeps talking about):

Periodically, check the bottom and sides of the bowl for flour that hasn’t blended into the mixture:

Keep mixing until the dough forms one big clump that feels elastic. Instead of breaking up into pieces when you put pressure on it, it will stretch:

Put the dough in the fridge (it will be easier to work with when cold):

Cover your cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with a layer of parchment paper or wax paper (if you have neither, grease the surface with butter—but I strongly recommend buying parchment paper at Walmart or the grocery store):

Next, dust your counter with flour (a 1 foot square should cover it):

Take your dough out of the fridge and scrape it onto the counter, using your spatula to make sure you don’t leave much dough behind. Rub flour all over the dough ball until the whole dough ball is evenly covered (don’t let any little bit stay unfloured, or it will stick to your counter):

Our dough is almost ready: it’s floured, but not quite enough (you can still see a little unfloured dough peeking through):

Now, our dough is ready:

Go ahead and sprinkle more flour onto your dough. Check the bottom of the dough to make sure it’s well-floured, too. Flour your hands, and then flatten the dough ball down a little with your hand:

Roll out the dough with the rolling pin (OR if you don’t have one, keep using your hands), making sure to 1) add more flour on the bottom if it’s sticking to the counter, and 2) switch the rolling pin position every once in awhile to make a round shape:

Keep rolling until you have an 8” or 10” circle. 8” will yield a thicker scone, while 10” will give you a thinner one. I prefer the thinner scone, but you should experiment to see what you prefer. Keep rolling until you’re satisfied, and add more flour every once in awhile:

If it’s not perfectly circular, use your hands to pat the dough into a circle:

Once more, add flour on top of the dough:

Now, your knife won’t stick to the dough! Use your bread knife or long serrated knife to cut the dough into eight pieces (if it sticks, flour the knife blade):

Now, transfer each piece onto the prepared pan, leaving 1/3” to 2/3” between each scone:

In a small bowl, whisk an egg:

And grab your pastry brush or basting brush:

Working quickly, brush dough triangles with egg (lightly! get as thin a layer as you can). Don’t brush the sides of the triangles; only brush the tops:

If you don’t have a pastry brush, spoon some of the egg onto the scones and spread it with your fingers.

(At this point, you can sprinkle on a little bit of rough sugar (turbinado or decorator’s sprinkling sugar, like you see on cupcakes) to make the scones look pretty. It’s good if you want to impress someone, but it doesn’t really make them taste any better.)