Summer season brings blueberry orange scones

This is blueberry time in Maine. I am watching the blueberries in my yard, where more and more are blue every day. There are blueberry festivals planned. At the Union Fair, Aug. 24 is festival day. In Machias, the Center Street Congregational Church sponsors its 32nd Blueberry Festival this year on Aug. 17-19. They have a blueberry cooking contest with several categories for entries from pies, to cakes, to jam and jellies and even puddings.

In fact, one of our faithful recipe contributors, Ruth Thurston of Machias, won this very contest with this week’s recipe, one which, by the way, was set forth in the pages of the Bangor Daily News many years ago by my predecessor Brownie Schrumpf. The Food Network showed up for the contest, and Ruth appeared on TV and the recipe was posted on the network’s Web site. I heard the story of this from Ruth herself while nibbling these scones when my husband Jamie and I visited with Ruth last October and she made these scones for us.

Ruth is, as they say, getting up there but you’d never know it. She still cooks from scratch for herself, after having raised six children and worked outside the home, too. She has a ferociously organized recipe collection, typed in notebooks, and she showed me her grandmother’s manuscript recipe book, which she now owns, dating to the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a lovely visit.

Here is the recipe. You can leave out the blueberries and end up with a perfectly wonderful orange scone, something you might do in February, for example. For now, finding three-quarters of a cup of them shouldn’t be too hard to do.

By the way, I am having a great time working my way through the 14 blueberry cake recipes plus an interesting blueberry dessert, you all sent. More later.

Blueberry-Orange Scones

Yields: 1 dozen scones.

1/3 cup sugar

Grated rind 1/2 orange

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup butter or margarine

2 eggs beaten (1 tablespoon reserved for a glaze)

1/2 cup buttermilk

3/4 cups blueberries

Mix sugar and orange rind in a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, mix the flour, 1/4 cup of the sugar-orange mixture, soda, salt, and baking powder. Cut in the butter. In a small bowl, beat the eggs, reserving all but a tablespoon of glaze. Add buttermilk to eggs and add to the dry ingredients. Mix and add blueberries. Stir carefully so as to not crush the berries. Turn onto a floured board, knead lightly a few times, divide the dough in half. Pat each half out into a 6- to 7-inch circle. Cut each circle into six wedges. (A pizza cutter works well for this.) Transfer these to greased cookie sheets. Brush each piece with egg glaze and sprinkle with the remaining orange-sugar mixture. Bake in hot oven 400 for 12 to 15 minutes or lightly browned. Serve warm.