I have never made lemonade scones before, but as it turns out, you can replace the lemonade with cider and have no adverse effects.

So these aren’t really lemonade scones, but cider scones.

Occasionally on weekends I will make scones for Man Piece and I as an afternoon snack. Usually it is because we woke up a bit later than normal, had breakfast and skipped lunch. But inevitably by mid-afternoon we are a bit peckish and don’t want a full-on meal. Scones usually do the trick. We eat a couple of them and then have a slightly later dinner.

The other week I had a bit of cream leftover in the fridge and I was trying to find something to use it up. I had the idea of making lemonade scones. I’d never tried them before but they looked so much easier than the ones where you rub the butter into the flour. However, the problem was that we had no lemonade in the house. Only beer and cider. Typical.

I figured the carbonation of the lemonade makes these scones work and, although the cider is not as fizzy as lemonade, it still has the fizz. I was willing to experiment, as I tend to do.

The recipe I was working to is one from Allyson Gofton’s Bake cookbook for Waiheke Lemonade Scones. Instead of 3/4 cup of lemonade I used 3/4 cup of Moa’s Apple Cider* – it’s dry, but has a sweet undertone that a lot of dry cider’s don’t have, but not too sweet. In the past I tended to go for the sweet ciders because I liked them more, but now I try to find a happy middle ground, and this is pretty bang on.

At first I was a little dubious that this was even going to work. I kept peeking in the oven to see if they were rising, which they weren’t really to begin with. Then they puffed up real good.

The end result was actually pretty tasty. The cider didn’t give the scones much of a flavour, but there was a hint of the sweetness there. It’s actually a decent substitute if you happen to find yourself sans lemonade. (I mean honestly, it’s not something I buy on the regular. I am actually more likely to have cider in the house.)

 

I also don’t tend to have cream in my fridge that often, so it was nice to try something different with the leftover. Also, these scones are SO much easier than normal scones. I also reckon they could work well with beer.

*Disclaimer: I had Moa Cider sent to me courtesy of Moa Beer, which is why it was in my fridge.