Fresh rhubarb scones holding court, with nary a strawberry in sight.

Here it is strawberry season, so you’re probably thinking strawberry rhubarb scones would be appropriate. After all, sweet strawberries and tart rhubarb show up in the garden around the same time and perfectly complement each other. But just because the two ingredients hang out a lot, doesn’t mean they’re married. Today I’m giving some props to straight rhubarb, hoping it steals the show for breakfast this weekend.

The deal with scones is that you want the butter to remain in little bits, rather than creaming it into the mixture. Those butter bits are what gives scones their flaky excellence, and why scone recipes call for chilled butter. Trust the bakers on this. If you make scones with softened butter, or over mix the butter into the batter you’ll end up with a bunch of big muffins. It’s not a tragedy, but not what you envisioned. And once you get hooked on good scones you won’t be truly satisfied with anything but the real, flaky, crumbly thing.

These babies, known elsewhere in the cyber food world as Naughty Rhubarb Scones, are delish as is, with whipped or clotted cream (for Brits) or, of course, with strawberry jam.

Makes 12-16 scones

Ingredients

3 stalks rhubarb (roughly 1½ cups when sliced)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup vanilla sugar (if using regular sugar add up to 1 tsp vanilla with the cream)
2/3—3/4 cups heavy cream

Method

Preheat oven to 425.

Slice rhubarb stalks 1/4 ” thick. Toss with 3 tablespoons of the sugar.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together in large bowl or bowl of food processor.

Cut butter into flour mixture by hand (or pulse in food processor) until butter is the size of small peas.

Blend in 1/4 cup of the sugar.

Blend in sliced rhubarb. (If using the food processor, just pulse — you want the slices left mostly intact.)

Blend in cream until a soft dough forms. (note: you may need to add more than 2/3 cup depending on the weather,etc.)

Transfer dough to floured surface and divide in half. To make triangular scones, flatten into 6-inch disks and deeply score or cut each circle into 6-8 scones. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.

Arrange scones on ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake about 20 minutes or until reddish-brown on top.

Enjoy and cheerio!