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Irish Soda Bread Scones with Marmalade Butter

Tender, flakey, and full of lovely flavours, these scones will become your new favourite! Perfect warm with a slather of marmalade butter, these are great for breakfast or coffee break.
Course Baking
Cuisine Irish
Keyword caraway seeds, currants, marmalade butter, orange zest, whiskey
Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 22 minutes
Servings 9 scones

Ingredients

Irish Soda Bread Scones

  • 3/4 cup (105 g) currants
  • 1 orange, zested and juiced, see Notes
  • whiskey, rum or bourbon, optional, see Notes
  • 2 1/3 cups (315 g) all-purpose flour, or your favourite cup for cup gluten free blend, see Notes
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds
  • 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted cold or frozen butter
  • 3/4 cup (175 ml) kefir or buttermilk, plus more depending on the flour you are using, see Notes
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tbsp kefir, for brushing on the scones before baking, optional

Orange Marmalade Butter

  • 8 tbsp softened butter, or 1/2 cup
  • 2 tbsp orange marmalade, see Notes
  • 2 tsp runny honey

Instructions

Irish Soda Bread Scones

  1. Place the currants and orange zest in a small bowl. Place the orange juice into a measuring cup. Top up with whiskey, or more juice to reach one cup's worth. Warm this liquid in a small sauce pan over medium heat till boiling. Adjust heat and let it simmer for one minute. Remove from the heat and pour this over the currants. Let them soak for at least 30 minutes. Drain through a strainer and set aside.

  2. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and caraway seeds with a whisk.

  4. Grate the butter into the flour mixture, and work into flour with your fingers or a pastry cutter. The butter should be well coated and evenly distributed. Fold in the drained currants and orange zest.

  5. In a medium separate bowl, whisk the kefir and egg until smooth. Pour this into a well made in the centre of the dry ingredients. Gently stir with a wooden spoon it starts to come together. It should look shaggy. If your dough is on the dry side (on a winter day with the heat on this may be the case) add a bit more kefir, 1 tbsp at a time till a shaggy texture is achieved.

  6. Turn the shaggy dough and all leftover bits onto a well- floured surface.

  7. Gently knead several times until dough comes together (stop before you overwork the dough or the scones will be tough) Flour your hands if needed.

  8. Press out the dough into rough rectangle about 2/3 inch thick. Using flour on the counter and your hands, fold it in half, and then turn a quarter turn. Press out into another rectangle, and fold again. Repeat the pressing, folding and turning two or three more times. Finish with a rectangle about one inch thick.

  9. Use a floured biscuit cutter (I like one about 2 inches wide) and cut out as many scones as you can from this rectangle. Press the remaining dough together, and fold once more. Cut out more biscuits. You should be able to get 8 or 9 scones, depending on the size of your cutter. Keep flouring your cutter so that it will go through the dough easily, and make sure you don't twist the cutter as you press down.
  10. Place them all the prepared baking sheet, close together. Chill these in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
  11. When ready to bake, brush the tops of the scones with a bit more kefir or butter milk.
  12. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until golden brown on top, with the layers puffed up.
  13. Cool for about 5 minutes before serving. You should be able to gently pull them open, with the layers opening up easily.
  14. Spread with Orange Marmalade Butter and enjoy!
  15. See blog post for more details.

Orange Marmalade Butter

  1. Combine the softened butter, marmalade and honey in a small bowl. A fork will work fine to work everything together. Store in a sealed container till needed. Bring out to warm up so that it is soft enough to spread on warmed scones, or toast!

Recipe Notes

To add a lovely depth of flavour, soaking the currants in the heated orange juice and whiskey is key. If you would rather skip the whiskey, feel free to use all orange juice.

If using cups to measure out the flour, use the fluff, scoop and level method:  fluff up the flour, use a spoon to fill the cup, and then a knife to level off the flour.  Pushing the cup into the flour will actually capture more flour than required. Many countries have their own versions of what a cup of flour weighs.  The weight you see stated above does not use any of those charts.  The weight I show is the from measuring my flour on a scale, so this is what will work for this recipe.

Wheat flours absorb liquids differently from gluten-free blends, so start with 3/4 cup of the kefir, and add more if needed for gluten free blends, to create a shaggy but not overly sticky dough.
Store bought marmalade will work great in this application. But if you want, to make your own Orange Marmalade, just click here.
Store leftover scones in a sealed container for up to three days. Re-warm any leftover scones in a 325F oven till warmed through. Do not use a microwave for best results.
Freeze unbaked for up to one month, for best results.
Freeze baked scones for up to two months.