Apricot, White Chocolate, and Walnut Scones

I have definitely had those days when just no dessert sounds good to me. I hate those days! Even if you are currently sick of all of your standard desserts, there are still some that can more than adequately satisfy your sweet tooth. Scones are a great way to satiate your need for sugar while still giving you something different that shakes things up a bit. Even though I'm a huge fan of desserts and I absolutely love sugar, some desserts I just get sick of sometimes. Here is a great recipe that will give you just the change that you are looking for.

You will need the following ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of butter, chilled
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 1 large egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 6 ounces of white chocolate chips
• 1 cup of toasted, coarsely broken walnuts
• 1 cup of chopped, dried apricots

This is a really simple recipe that will give you more variety to your desserts. Start off by stirring the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. You just need to stir it together—you don't need to use a mixer or anything on this part of the cooking procedure. The next thing you need to do is cut the butter in to the dry ingredients. If you don't know what it means to cut the butter in, then keep reading this next part. Cutting butter into dry ingredients means basically means to mix the butter in. The best way to cut in butter is to use a pastry blender, but if you do not have a pastry blender, then you can use butter knives. If you use butter knives, then use them to slice the butter and mix it in. The mixture should resemble coarse meal.

Put the dry ingredients to the side for a moment, and stir together the cream, egg, and vanilla. It would be best to use a hand mixer to beat these ingredients together. Once you have the cream mixture well combined, then you can add it to the dry ingredient mixture. Do not use a hand mixer, but rather knead the cream mixture into the flour mixture and keep kneading until the ingredients are well combined and it resembles a dough. Next, knead in the white chocolate, walnuts, and apricots.

Once you have the dough mixed up, pat the dough into a nine inch circle in the center of an ungreased baking sheet. Using a serrated knife, cut the circle of dough into eight wedges (kind of like a pizza). Put the baking sheet into an oven preheated to 375 degrees, and bake the scone dough for fifteen to twenty minutes or until the top of the scone is lightly browned.

When the scones are finished baking, take them out and cool them on the baking sheet for five minutes, and then transfer the scone pie to the rack. If you need to, recut the circle into wedges. These scones can be a great snack and can even fill a dessert need for you. Your desserts don't need to be boring anymore, but rather, you can add great variety to your dessert repertoire.