Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones

Right before the storm hit last week, I baked like crazy to get my fix just in case we wound up losing power for a few days. I surveyed the scene in my fridge looking for anything that was on its way out, and came up with both raspberries and ricotta cheese. An unusual combination to say the least, and I certainly didn’t expect to use them both in the same recipe, but then I remembered these scones I’d bookmarked many, many months ago. Not only did they utilize both the raspberries and the ricotta as well as a good deal of whole wheat flour, but they’d received rave reviews from two bloggers whose opinions I trust implicitly. Decision made 🙂

That said, I still didn’t anticipate these clean-the-fridge-out scones becoming an instant favorite. We didn’t end up losing power from the storm luckily, so I was able to turn on the oven and bake a few of these straight from the freezer where I’d stashed them just a day earlier. They look so unassuming, but the first bite made me swoon. The scones are incredibly tender and moist, more so than any other I can remember having in the past. There’s raspberry flavor in each and every bite as well as a subtle tang from the inclusion of the ricotta. Often when I bake scones I deem them too plain and wind up adding a glaze, but these scones were amazing all on their own.

Any time I clean out the fridge, ricotta is one of the ingredients I always seem to find partial containers of that need to be tossed. Something tells me that won’t be a problem anymore…

With regard to the storm, a number of people have asked me to share photos so I’m going to include a few below. I posted some others to my Instagram account over the weekend if you’re itching for more snow pics.

These first four are a sort of time-lapse of the storm, all taken from the same spot in our house looking out over the driveway.

Friday afternoon as the storm had just started

Late Friday afternoon, just before the sun set

Saturday morning

Sunday morning, after way too many hours of shoveling. Can you see how tall the piles of snow are on either side of our driveway? They were easily over my head!

The snow was piled so high in front of the doors we couldn’t open them. We had to go out through the sliding door to our back deck and then literally tunnel our way through the yard.

Here’s a close-up on that last shot. It was tough to measure the depth of the snow with accuracy because it had been blowing and drifting like crazy, but this was our best attempt. I can’t remember the last time we saw over 2 feet of snow from a single storm!

It’s a little bit hard to tell, but Shane is on his snowboard here riding down the middle of our street. Well, I should say attempting to ride. The snow wasn’t packed down and the hills weren’t quite steep enough to get much speed, but he had fun trying 🙂

Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones
adapted from Smitten Kitchen (via The Way The Cookie Crumbles)

3/4 cup (6.5 oz) ricotta (I used part-skim)
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup (4.8 oz) white whole wheat flour
1 cup (4.8 oz) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup (1.75 oz) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup (4.75 oz) raspberries, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)

Preheat oven to 425 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the ricotta and 1/3 cup heavy cream together in a measuring cup. Add both flours, the baking powder, sugar and salt to the bowl of your food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter cubes and pulse the mixture until the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces. Add the raspberries to the food processor and pulse three or four times just to break them up a bit. Pour the ricotta mixture into the food processor and pulse until the dry ingredients are moistened – the dough will still be crumbly and will not have come together into a ball yet. Avoid processing it too much.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Gently knead the dough once or twice to bring it together into a ball. Use your hands to shape it into a 1-inch thick rectangle, then cut the dough into 12 equal pieces. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

{Note: at this point you can freeze the scones rather than bake them. I like to put them on a baking sheet in the freezer until they’re frozen solid, then transfer them to a large resealable plastic bag. You can bake them directly from the freezer (no need to defrost), just add a few minutes to the baking time.}

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges of the scones are golden brown. Transfer the scones to a wire rack and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Makes 12 scones