Lemon blueberry scones with a candied lemon crunch

Despite the fact that my husband resigned from his position as Lead Pastor this past January, we decided to continue meeting with our small group for the remainder of the year. I’m so glad we have done so. Sundays have been really hard for me, now that we’re unemployed and church shopping—but I always have our Sunday night small group to look forward to! 

Saying good-bye to these amazing friends will be difficult. Though, I am confident we will keep in touch with this great group of people. They are some of the best! And when I say some of the best, I mean some of the best people, some of the best friends, some of the best encouragers. But what I also mean is some of the best cooks! As in, seriously, some of the BEST.

So, we decided to spend this year doing Sunday night dinners together before small group.

We pick a theme and then each bring something to contribute. We’ve had taco bars, salad bars, soups, a southern food fry, Thanksgiving dinner and so much more. Last night we even had a Mongolian Grill night. Heavenly!  

I was in charge of dessert. My husband has been on a lemon blueberry kick since he sampled some of the candied lemon crunches that I made for my recent batch of Lemon Cupcakes. My friend, Jessica who hosted last night’s Mongolian Grill also loves all things lemon. So, naturally, I decided to try my hand at some lemon blueberry scones. They did not disappoint!

I used this recipe with a few adjustments:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/blueberry-scones-with-lemon-glaze-recipe.html

Namely, I doubled the scone recipe but kept the glaze recipe the same after reading the comments that said there was enough glaze to do two batches. You could also keep the recipe the same and just halve the glaze recipe. Six in one hand, half-dozen in the other, right?

I chose to cut mine differently too. I just made round, mounds of dough (6… I think) then cut them like a pizza into six triangles. My doubled batch made 26 medium sized scones.

Additionally, I zested two lemon peels. I used one peel to create the glaze as stated in the recipe.

I used the zest of the second lemon for something delicious. First, I put half straight into the scone dough to add a little lemon flavor to the scone itself.

But then, I used the other half of the lemon zest to make a candied lemon crunch topping.

I have a new best friend.

I should have taken pictures of the work in progress, but you’ll have to use your imagination as I explain how this is done.

Candied Lemon Crunch Topping

Zest a lemon peel using a medium grate (you don’t want these to be tiny, they should be big enough to actually see a little bit of the texture of the peel, but not as big as a standard cheese grater.

Then, set them out on a plate while they are still kind of wet. Sprinkle the top with sugar. Then mix it around and repeat. Keep doing this until you have a plate full of wet, lemony sugar sprinkles and candied lemon peels.

If I had to guess, I probably used around a half-cup to three-quarters of a cup of sugar for half a peel. Just keep sprinkling and stirring until the sugar no longer gets wet from the peels. Don’t skimp on the sugar, or you will miss out on these lemon sugar clumps that turn a lemon blueberry scone into something magical!

Let this sit for several hours if possible. If not, you can put them in a warm oven to speed up the crunching process.

When you put the glaze on these scones, immediately top them with some of the candied lemon peel and some of the lemon sugar sprinkles. 

Then sit back, relax and enjoy the moist, flaky, crunchy goodness of your lemon blueberry scones. And beg someone else to do the dishes. Because making something this yummy should automatically give you a pass from having to clean up after yourself, in my not-so-humble opinion.

However, since my family has been working in the yard this morning while I create this blog post, I suppose it’s only fair that I go clean up my own kitchen. I’m willing to do so only because I glazed the scones on a cooling rack over a rimmed baking sheet. That means I have a puddle of lemon glaze waiting to be consumed… you know, so I can wash the pan…