For Christmas dinner, my parents went all out.  We ate a whole duck: the legs sous-vided for 36 hours, and the breasts lightly seared and served with a pomegranate sauce.  That recipe has certainly not been passed down within my family, and may even be in response to the barren wasteland that is the Irish cuisine of my ancestors. My grandparents did not have many family recipes worth passing down while my dad was growing up.  (Like my dad says, “There are two ways Irish cook things, by boiling it, or baking the crap out of it.”)  But for breakfast that morning, we were greeted by an Irish scone.  

This scone is not your typical, fist-sized, Starbucks scone. It is an Irish scone (pronounced skahn), the shape and size of a partially deflated basketball. A simple, yet delicious dish made from flour, eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and raisins in a cast iron skillet.  That scone recipe has been passed down through generations and makes an appearance both as comfort food and in times of crisis.   

But recently, while we were in Pennsylvania, my dad’s first cousin, Mary Therese Kelly, immediately baked two scones as soon as she heard that my grandmother (her aunt) had died and arrived at the house with them before the funeral home came to pick up my grandmother’s body.  She also shared the recipe from her grandmother who was born in Ireland with my mother so we could also enjoy the scone recipe that we had only had in Pennsylvania.  

The scone recipe was originally used to ward off the “bad fairies'' and must have a cross carved into it and you must say three Hail Marys before you pop it in the oven.  According to Mary Therese, this part is extremely important so you have to do it even if you are not religious.  Over the past few months, since we returned home from Pennsylvania, my mom has been making the scone quite frequently (of course saying the three Hail Marys and carving a cross). Once, she tried to ‘fancy it up’ by substituting in dried cherries and candied ginger for the raisins, but it did not compare to the original recipe which we continued to make.  Many of my mom’s friends have even asked for the recipe so they can make it themselves.

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 375

Put cast iron skillet in oven

4 cups Flour

4 tsp Baking Powder

½ cup Sugar

1 tsp Salt

1-2 cups Raisins

2 Eggs mixed with Milk to equal 2 cups total

Lightly mix

Melt 2 tbsp butter in the skillet

Add the scone mix

Cut a cross in the top and dust with flour.  Then say 3 Hail Marys.

Bake at 375 for 15 min

Reduce heat to 350 for 30 min

Wrap in a linen towel