My friends Larry Butler and Carol Ann Sayle, owners of Boggy Creek Farm in Austin, sell the most fabulous smoked tomatoes. I’ve used them to enhance meat dishes and salads. But I’d never tried them in a bread or scone, so I came up with this recipe to showcase them. As soon as the first fragrant scone came out of the oven, I knew I’d be delighted with the result. I even devised a way to use the day-old scones to stuff my Three Pigs pork tenderloin (page 33). As much as I love Larry’s smoked tomatoes, I must admit the scones are delicious made with any high-quality sun dried tomatoes.

　　

Ingredients

makes about 25 small scones

　　1/2 cup pine nuts

　　3 cloves roasted garlic, mashed (see page 255)

　　1/2 cup firmly packed smoked tomatoes (see headnote) or sundried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and chopped

　　3 1/2 cups bleached all-purpose flour

　　1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

　　1 teaspoon salt

　　1 to 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

　　3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces

　　1 cup grated 5-month-aged Asiago cheese (grated with the large holes)

　　2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions (white part only)

　　1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

　　1/2 to 3/4 cup buttermilk

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Arrange the pine nuts on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake until golden, about 5 minutes; set aside. (Keep checking; they burn easily.)

　　

Step 2

In a bowl, stir together the tomatoes and the roasted garlic, making sure the garlic breaks up and is evenly distributed.

　　

Step 3

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Gradually cut in the butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until the mixture resembles small peas. Stir in the tomato garlic mixture, pine nuts, grated cheese, green onions, cream, and 1/2 cup of the buttermilk. Using your hands, mix all the ingredients until they are incorporated. If the dough is too dry to hold together, add more buttermilk, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough is pliable and can be formed into a ball. Mix as lightly as possible to ensure a light-textured scone.

　　

Step 4

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Pat the dough into a rectangle. Using a well floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 3/4 inch thick. With a sharp knife, halve the dough lengthwise into 2 long, rectangular pieces. Cut each piece into 2-inch rectangles, then halve each rectangle on the diagonal to make small scones. Bake on an greased baking sheet until the scones are golden and no longer sticky, about 15 minutes.

　　Pastry Queen Parties by Rebecca Rather and Alison Oresman. Copyright © 2009 Rebecca Rather and Alison Oresman. Published by Ten Speed Press. All Rights Reserved.A pastry chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author, native Texan Rebecca Rather has been proprietor of the Rather Sweet Bakery and Café since 1999. Open for breakfast and lunch daily, Rather Sweet has a fiercely loyal cadre of regulars who populate the café’s sunlit tables each day. In 2007, Rebecca opened her eponymous restaurant, serving dinner nightly, just a few blocks from the café.  Rebecca is the author of THE PASTRY QUEEN, and has been featured in Texas Monthly, Gourmet, Ladies Home Journal, Food & Wine, Southern Living, Chocolatier, Saveur, and O, The Oprah Magazine. When she isn’t in the bakery or on horseback, Rebecca enjoys the sweet life in Fredericksburg, where she tends to her beloved backyard garden and menagerie, and eagerly awaits visits from her college-age daughter, Frances.Alison Oresman has worked as a journalist for more than twenty years. She has written and edited for newspapers in Wyoming, Florida, and Washington State. As an entertainment editor for the Miami Herald, she oversaw the paper’s restaurant coverage and wrote a weekly column as a restaurant critic. After settling in Washington State, she also covered restaurants in the greater Seattle area as a critic with a weekly column. A dedicated home baker, Alison is often in the kitchen when she isn't writing. Alison lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her husband, Warren, and their children, Danny and Callie.