pink scones

What a glorious day weather-wise today, the sun came out after a gray start to the morning. I had a nice 2.5 mile walk on the boardwalk then it was time to get busy doing something.
 
When I spoke to my granddaughter the other evening, she requested pink scones. Of course, Nana couldn’t refuse her request, but I had no red food coloring. What I did have was a can a beets that I purchased just before the great food rush for COVID-19. I thought a bit of beet juice in my wet ingredients would do the trick and it did. After incorporating the wet with the dry, the dough was a lovely soft pink color.  I found an easy to prepare vanilla scone recipe on the King Arthur Flour website. 

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The recipe contains pantry staples such as flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cold butter, eggs, vanilla extract and half-and-half or milk. To the basic recipe you can add one to two cups of chopped dried fruit, chocolate or flavored chips, nuts and or a combination of the aforementioned. I left mine plain, only adding about a tablespoon or so of beet juice as food coloring. I also shaved my cold butter with a box grater. I thought I read somewhere that this helps the scones to rise a little higher and makes it easier to mix with the flour.
 
After mixing and forming the dough into 2-five inch circles, you cut each disc into six portions. I refrigerated the scones for an hour versus 30 minutes in the freezer as I had no room. The scones are baked at 425° for 20-25 minutes. I used the convection setting (400°) on my oven and they were done in approximately 20 minutes. 
 
The scones are delicious! Although they didn’t come out quite pink as I thought, they tasted great. Not too sweet and had a delicate, moist crumb. They would go perfectly with a cup of tea such as Earl Grey, Vanilla Chai or Vanilla Rooibos. I’m enjoying mine with a cup of LaMarche tea from Sweet Tease Tea Room in Belmar, NJ (I work there as a tea barista). If you were one of those people who stocked up on flour, this would be a great recipe to try.