Low(er) Carb Blueberry Scones

One of my very favorite parts of late spring in the Temecula valley is the amazing produce available. Not only from my local CSA, Harvest2U, but also from the amazing blueberry farm that is right down the street from my house! Depending on the weather, the Temecula Berry Company opens in May, and weather permitting, stays open until sometime in July.

As a family we've been making trips to our local blueberry farm almost weekly when it's open. They have a U Pick farm as well as pre made blueberry pies for sale. They have movie on the farm nights and other great events.

The farm opened Wednesday of last week, but the weather was less than perfect, so we waited until Friday to go for our first visit of the 2011 blueberry season. You can certainly tell the boys are getting older and well versed in the rules of blueberry picking, because picking our few pints took about half the time it took last year. The berries are big and beautiful and most importantly, delicious!

Blueberry scones are my absolute favorite and I made them several times last year. This year I decided to take my favorite recipe and make it South Beach Diet friendly. Granted, it does contain flour so it's more along the lines of phase two for an occasional treat or phase three.

What you're going to need:
Scones
2C stone ground whole wheat pastry flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1T baking powder
1/2t salt
2T Splenda
5T cold butter, cut into small pieces
1c half and half (plus about another 2T for brushing scones)

Glaze
juice and zest of one lemon
1/2t olive oil (I used meyer lemon olive oil)
3T Splenda

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Scones
Sift all dry ingredients together.

Cut butter into the dry mixture with pastry blender or two forks until butter resembles pea sized pieces covered in flour mixture.

Make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in half and half. Fold the half and half into the flour mixture, taking caution not to over mix. This will make for a tougher dough and wheat flour is already not as light and airy as white flour.

Fold in blueberries.

Flour a cutting board or your countertop lightly and roll dough onto the surface. Gently press into a rectangle about 12" by 3.5". Cut the rectangle in half and then half again, leaving yourself with four squares (or square-ish). These squared you will then cut in half on the diagonal to make the traditional triangular scone shape.

Place the scones on to an ungreased cookie sheet and then brush with half and half. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remember, the whole wheat flour is already a darker color so they aren't going to change color so much. Don't let them get "brown" or they will be over done.

Remove and let cool. Then top with glaze. That recipe will follow this.

Glaze
This could not get more simple!
Add all glaze ingredients to a microwave safe bowl.
Cook for 11 second in the microwave, stir and repeat.
Brush glaze on top of scones.

Enjoy!