Scones tasty, but don't call it curd

I was never a fan of scones until I met Kathy Winkler, owner of a local cooking school where I used to teach.

One day, I walked in and Kathy handed me a blueberry scone that just came out of the oven. I almost didn't try it; the scones I knew were dry, dense, flavorless and so hard they could double as pumice stones.

So I stood there in the studio kitchen, wondering where I could hide this scone without Kathy noticing.

"Try it!" she said. "It's still warm from the oven!"

There was no avoiding it. I grabbed a big glass of water for a chaser and broke into it with my hands.

Soft. Moist. Warm.

Then I took a bite. Ooooooh. Rich, delicate.

The pleasing texture and delectable deliciousness has everything to do with mixing the dough by hand with a wooden spoon, which prevents overworking it. Oh, um yeah, and maybe a teeny tiny bit to do with the butter and sour cream in the recipe, too.

One more thing, I'm going to confess that the original name for the lemon glaze is really lemon curd. But I have a word phobia when it comes to curd. It doesn't sound appealing and if you try to feed my kids anything with the word curd in it, there's a 99 percent chance they'll fling it right back at ya.

BLUEBERRY SCONES WITH LEMON GLAZE

(Recipe adapted from Kathy Winkler)

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)

2 cups light sour cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cut in softened butter. Gently fold in the sour cream and vanilla. Fold in blueberries. Try not to overwork the dough to keep the scones light and delicate. Scoop dough (about 1/2 cup) onto lightly greased cookie sheet and bake 30 minutes (depending on size) or until the tops are golden brown. Serve with the Lemon Glaze.

Makes 12 scones

LEMON GLAZE

(Recipe adapted from Kathy Winkler)

3 lemons

2 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons butter

Zest the lemon with a microplane grater. Cut each lemon in half and juice the lemons. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the lemon zest, lemon juice, eggs and sugar. Whisk constantly and make sure the mixture does not come to a boil (or the eggs will curdle). When the mixture is hot, turn the heat to low and whisk in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue cooking on low for 6 minutes until the lemon glaze has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool.