Vegan Strawberry Cream Scones With Almonds

DIRECTIONS

• First, finely cut up your strawberries and wash them-- make sure you drain them with and blot with paper towels to get the excess moisture out or else they won't bake right.
• Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a mixing bowl.
• Add the fresh orange zest, or if you're using dried, hydrate 1 teaspoon dried orange peel with 3 teaspoons water and let sit for at least 10-15 minutes before adding to the mix.
• Stir in the zest, then cut in the cold Earth Balance or butter in very small pieces bit by bit-- like you're "whittling" it inches.
• By hand or with a pastry cutter, mix the butter in with the other ingredients until the mixture is crumbly but coming together.
• Mix in the strawberries and almonds with the rosewater or vanilla.
• Add just enough milk or soymilk (almond milk etc.) to make the dough smooth but not too much or else it'll get too watery. If it does, just add a bit more flour to dry it back up. Then you can divide the dough one of two ways. But first lay out some parchment paper onto a cookie sheet.
• The lazy way (my way!) is to drop large spoonfuls of the mixture onto it, about 8-10 big globs. Make sure they're spaced far apart enough!
• Or, extract the whole bowl's contents and knead on a floured surface until you can get a large disc and pat it down to the desired thickness, then slice into 8-10 pieces, laying them out on the parchment paper.
• Regardless of how you get there, bake for 20-25 minutes at 425F until golden brown. Serve warm or cool. Warning, they're quite addictive!