I need to profess my love.  For scones, you’re wondering?  Yes.  I totally love scones.  Especially when they’re soft and buttery and filled with fresh peaches.  Goodness gracious.  How could I not profess my love?

But seriously.  There’s this lady and her name is Joy the Baker.  Once upon a time, about three years ago, I saw a link posted on another blog I read regularly.  The link was for a recipe called Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes.  I read that recipe and I laughed.  I laughed and I smiled and I thought to myself, “I want to be this lady’s friend.  She is adorable and hilarious and holy heck, those pancakes look amazing!”

I’ve been frequenting Joy’s website ever since, have become an avid fan of her and Tracy Shutterbean — er, I mean Benjamin’s — podcast, Joy the Baker podcast (you should totally listen — it’s hysterical and always a bright spot in my week), and when I found out that Joy was coming out with her own cookbook, I was over the moon.  When I found out that she was doing a book tour and would be coming to Chicago, I emailed my dear friend Rebekah, who I’d made a recent Joy lover via podcast listens and recipe emails, and said something along the lines of, “Joy.  In Chicago.  I’m going.  You’re going.  OH EM GEE.”

And so, we got in the car one Saturday morning in March.  The weather was crisp and sunny.  We drove up to the incredibly charming town of Winnetka, and we (gasp) met Joy the Baker.  Well, us and over 200 other sweet people.  And you know what?  She was just as hilarious, warm, and lovely in person as I’d imagined.  She hugged us and signed our cookbooks and called me, “a gemstone.”

Then we ran around Old Orchard Mall like a couple of giddy school girls and asked each other, “are you a dancer?” and “would you like to share a salad?”, got some dinner, and trekked it back to the ‘burbs.  It was the most lovely day.

I still frequent her website and flip through her cookbook for baking inspiration — she is this incredible source of delicious recipes, beautiful photos, and quirky humor (and let’s be real — quirky humor is my language).

I saw this recipe posted a couple of months ago and have been meaning to try it out — yesterday I finally got around to it.  And this won’t be the last time I make these.  In fact, as soon as I took a bite of one of these scones, still warm from the oven, I started thinking of all of the other filling possibilities.  Strawberries?  Apples?  Plums?  Oh man.

Seriously.  These scones are so delicious.  And there happened to be a bounty of peaches at a farm stand close to my house, so I took full advantage of summer’s final “hurrah” and baked these up — and will probably do so again before the end of the season.  They are so.  Dang.  Good.

Visit Joy’s website, get inspired, bake some scones.  Not necessarily in that order.

Peach Cobbler Scones

Makes 8 scones

Recipe via Joy the Baker

You will need:

3 c. all-purpose flour

1/4 c. sugar

3 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. salt

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into cubes

1/4 c. vegetable shortening, cold and cut into cubes

1 egg, beaten

3/4 c. buttermilk, cold

1 t. vanilla

1 ripe peach, sliced thin

1/4 c. buttermilk, for brushing

2 T. sugar

3/4 t. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Cut in shortening and butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.  In a separate bowl, combine egg, milk, and vanilla, and beat lightly.  Add the egg mixture to flour mixture all at once, stirring enough to make a soft dough.

3. Turn out onto a floured board and knead about 15 times.  If the butter has warmed too much from making of the dough, shape the batter into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and let cool in fridge for about 15 minutes.  If the butter is still cool, shape the dough into a disk and, on a well-floured surface, roll dough to a little less than 1/2-inch thickness (if you’ve made biscuits, make the dough a little thinner than that).

4. Brush half of the rolled out dough with buttermilk.  Arrange peach slices, in a single layer, across the buttermilk moistened dough.  Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Fold the empty side of dough over the peach sliced layer and press together gently.  Add a bit of flour to your hands and press the edges of the dough in, creating a rectangle shape.  Using a floured knife, slice dough into eight even pieces.

5. Place scones on baking sheets, about 1 and 1/2 inches apart.  Brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar mixture.

6.  Bake scones for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.  Cool at least 15 minutes before serving.  Wrap cooled scones in plastic wrap.  Per Joy, “Scones are best served warm, on the day they’re made, with soft butter.”