Ahhhh, Valentine’s Day. A day that we set aside to celebrate love, friendship, chocolate, bitterness, jealousy, chocolate, loneliness, and more chocolate. Seriously, though, however you feel about this holiday, I think you’re going to feel great about these scones.

I stole this idea from my dear friend Jessica, who has a tradition of making heart-shaped, heart-healthy scones for Valentine’s Day. Her take on heart-healthy is to sub out some of the white flour for whole wheat, use fresh cranberries, replace the white sugar with some other less refined sweetener (brown, raw, honey), and sub the heavy cream for yogurt or buttermilk.

Since this is my first time making scones (can you believe it?!), I didn’t want to mess with the recipe too much. So, while I did use whole wheat flour and fresh cranberries, I didn’t replace the white sugar or heavy cream. The verdict? Totally yummy, totally adorable, GIANT scones, ready in about 45 minutes. Now that’s a weekday breakfast treat waiting to happen! Here goes!

Cranberry-Lemon Heart Scones – adapted from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar plus 3 tablespoons
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
• 1 1/4 cups fresh cranberries, chopped coarse
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 cup heavy cream

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper

With a vegetable peeler remove the zest from lemons and chop fine.

In a food processor pulse flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, butter and zest until mixture resembles coarse meal and transfer to a large bowl.

In a small bowl toss together fresh cranberries and 3 tablespoons sugar and stir into flour mixture.

In another small bowl lightly beat egg and yolk and stir in cream. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined.

On a well-floured surface with floured hands pat dough into a 1-inch-thick round (about 8 inches in diameter). With a floured sharp knife, cut the circle into eights, like a pizza. Shape the rounded side into a heart by cutting out a small V in the center. Combine the cut scraps to make a small round scone.

Arrange hearts and extra round scone about 1 inch apart on baking sheet and bake in middle of oven 15 to 20 minutes, or until slightly golden brown. (Or pale golden if using only white flour.)

Eat round scone first to make sure the rest aren’t poisonous. Serve the heart scones to your friends, coworkers, postal carrier, secret admirer, or your sweetheart.

Enjoy!