Frozen raspberries

When I was a child, raspberries were one of those things with a very narrow window. You could buy them in July, and that was about it. I don't recall being able to buy them frozen at the market like you can now, and my very urbanized mother would never have thought of buying them and storing them in a basement deep freeze. No one we knew, even the most conspicuous consumers, had a basement deep freeze.

When I started on preserving a few years ago, I was skeptical of the idea of freezing fruit--if you wanted fruit in midwinter, it seemed to me, to be absolutely pure, then making jam was the way to go. And, frankly, you could make this recipe using jam as well, it would be delicious.

But all the same, I'm glad I decided not to be so pure.

Raspberry twirl scones
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, diced

1/3 cup sour cream
raspberry juice (drained raspberries)
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup honey

1 egg white, whisked with 1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries, drained

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheets with parchment.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, zest and salt in large bowl. Add butter and cut in with a knife, pastry blender or your fingers until it resembles a coarse meal.

Whisk sour cream, egg, vanilla, and honey in a small bowl until thoroughly blended. Add egg mixture to flour mixture; stir just until combined. Gather dough into ball and knead just enough to make the dough a solid mass. (If you knead it too much, you'll lose the flakiness that makes scones so good.)  Roll out dough on floured surface in a slab about 8x12". It should be about 1/2- 3/4 inch thick.  For larger scones, roll it on the 8" axis, for smaller, on the 12" axis.

Paint the slab with the eggwhite/sugar mix, then spread the fruit on it in a single layer. Gently roll it into a tight log, then slice into 2" pieces. Place scones on prepared baking sheet, about an inch apart. You can brush the tops with any left over egg white and sprinkle with a tiny bit of sugar if you want a little bit of a crunchy glaze. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Makes about 16 to 20 small scones or 8 to 10 large ones.