Maple Butter and Rosemary Scones

In the run up to the holidays, I love to imagine all the fancy cocktail parties and open houses I’m going to host. But you know what? It gives me stress! Since having kids, the way we entertain just had to change. Kids hopped up on candy canes and your best crystal and china are not a terrific pairing. And so I’ve switched gears over the years to having people over for brunch. It’s more relaxed, it’s everyone’s favourite meal, nobody’s worried about their kid’s bedtime, and the food can be served family-style. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to add as many special touches to the meal as possible.

Enter these fantastic little babies. Everyone, please meet the Maple Butter Rosemary Scones. They deliver that savoury-meets-sweet combination we find so irresistible. The heavenly scent they create in your home while you’re baking is reason enough to make these. You can serve them warm or at room temperature, so you can make them the day before your guests are coming over. You could mix up the herbs to suit your tastes (we think thyme would be amazing, too), but what you cannot do is skip the butter. Like so many baking recipes, the way butter works in these scones creates the tender, flaky texture that you’ll love.

To give our scones an added flavour boost, we used Lactantia’s new Maple Flavoured Butter (but it’s so divine you’re going to want to use it many other things, like just spread on bread or toast) and like we’ve been hinting on Twitter and Facebook, we’re going to share our #buttersecret with you. To make the most of this delicious flavoured butter we wanted to be sure to fully, yet gently, incorporate it throughout our dough.

photo by Maya Visnyei

So, here’s our trick: grated, frozen butter. Whenever you need to mix butter into flour to create a crumb – whether it’s scones, biscuits or pastries – the very best way to do is to start with frozen butter. Just pop it in the freezer for a half an hour or more. Then get out your good, old box grater. Take your frozen butter and grate away.

See what I’m doing there? You’ll end up with teeny, even bits of butter that will mix together with your dry ingredients much more easily than using a traditional pastry cutter. Trust us, try this method once and you won’t go back.

For many more great and unexpected ways to use butter, head over to Chatelaine and check out ideas from other food bloggers and chefs.

This post was sponsored by Lactantia but all of the opinions are our own.