The Best Glazed Mixed Berry Scones

December. The second Christmas alone — though "alone" is less and less accurate, because alone has been replaced by "independent," which has been replaced by "mine," which is the word I use now for the life I live: mine. Not Brian's. Not defined by marriage or partnership or the expectations of another person. Mine. The word is small and enormous and I say it when I hang the ornaments Miya and I made last year, when I plug in the lights, when I stand in the kitchen at midnight wrapping presents, when I make matcha shortbread and stack the cookies on a plate and the plate is for the neighbors, because I have neighbors now, because this apartment is a home now, because home is the place where you make cookies for the people who live on the other side of the wall.

I made kuromame — the sweet black beans, the New Year's dish, the two-day project. The nail in the pot. The simmering. The patience. This is the fourth year of making kuromame without Fumiko's phone call, and the fourth year the beans are better than the year before. The improvement curve is flattening — approaching perfect, asymptotic, the gap between my kuromame and Fumiko's kuromame narrowing to a measurement that might be memory rather than quality. Maybe my kuromame is as good as Fumiko's. Maybe I will never know, because the comparison requires a dead woman's palate and the dead do not taste. The beans are good. The beans are glossy and black and sweet. The beans are mine.

Miya's Japanese school had a holiday concert. She stood on a small stage in a classroom and sang "Jingle Bells" in Japanese — "Jinguru beru, jinguru beru" — with the other children, and the sound of Japanese Christmas songs in a classroom in Portland was both absurd and beautiful, the cultural collision that is Miya's life, the collision that is my life, the collision that is the book I have written, and the book is about this: the collision is not a crash. The collision is a song. The song has two languages. The song is sung by five-year-olds who do not know they are making history, who are just singing because the teacher said to sing, because the holidays are here, because the jinguru berus are ringing, and the ringing is the sound of the chain holding.

The matcha shortbread went to the neighbors, and then the neighbors asked if I baked often, and then I was baking again — because that is how homes work, and that is how chains hold. These glazed mixed berry scones have become my second holiday offering, the thing I make when the kuromame is cooling on the stove and the apartment smells like something that belongs to me. They are buttery and bright and a little sweet, and they travel well in a tin, and a tin left at a door is a small way of saying: I know you are on the other side of this wall, and I am glad.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 42 minutes | Servings: 8 scones

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup cold heavy cream, plus more for brushing
1 large egg, cold
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup mixed fresh or frozen berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)
For the glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2–3 tablespoons milk or cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until combined.
Cut in butter. Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Keep everything cold.
Add wet ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet mixture over the flour-butter mixture and stir gently with a fork just until a shaggy dough forms. Do not overmix.
Fold in berries. Add the mixed berries and fold gently two or three times to distribute. Some berries will break — that is fine and beautiful.
Shape and cut. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a 3/4-inch-thick circle, about 7 inches across. Cut into 8 wedges and transfer to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them 2 inches apart.
Brush and bake. Brush the tops lightly with heavy cream. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
Make the glaze. Whisk together the powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and vanilla until smooth. Add more milk one teaspoon at a time until the glaze is thick but pourable. Drizzle over the cooled scones and let set for 15 minutes before stacking or wrapping.

Nutrition (per serving)

The Best Glazed Mixed Berry Scones — The Plate I Made for the People on the Other Side of the Wall