Skinny Choc Chip Scones

Skinny and scones aren’t two words you usually see side-by-side. Luckily, I’m here to fix that.

The buttery, flakiness of a scone usually comes from – you guessed it – butter. This recipe only uses 3 tablespoons of butter for 12 scones, making these practically diet food. Unfortunately, a lot of the scone texture has been lost through minimal butter usage and these scones come out a bit more sponge cake-like than scone-like.

Make sure you go easy on the baking soda and the salt! I originally used 2 teaspoons of baking soda and ½ teaspoon of salt. Even though I’d used unsalted butter, these scones tasted like I’d just fished them out of the sea. My Official Treat Taster’s face was a picture.

I’m sad to say they’re also a little bit on the dry side. Thinking back now, I should have added some Greek yogurt, but that would have taken even more away from the scone texture. I think the lesson is that if you want a low-calorie snack, don’t opt for a scone!

Skinny Choc Chip Scones

Adapted from Skinny Taste

Makes 12

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup white sugar

3 tablespoons cold butter

¾ cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 egg

¾ cup chocolate chips

Topping:

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Mix together the 2 flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a bowl.

2. Rub the butter in with your fingertips until breadcrumb sized pieces remain.

3. Mix in the milk, vanilla, egg and chocolate chips.

4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times. Shape the dough into a circle and use a pizza cutter – or a knife if you don’t have one – to divide the dough into 12 triangles.

5. Lightly whisk the egg white and brush it all over the scones. Sprinkle on the sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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Strawberry & White Chocolate Scones

There’s something very adult about scones. Maybe because they’re typically associated with the British and a large chunk of the world thinks that British people sit around with monocles drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches.

That’s not true. Some of them have the occasional coffee. Some even drink hot chocolate just to keep warm in the winter.

I’m going to have to pick myself up on referring to the British as ‘them’. According to my passport, I’m British but I’ve spend almost half of my life in Tenerife. 

I feel much more comfortable in a Canarian chiringuito than I ever would in a British café. But anyway, back to the scones.

Having a great big chocolate fudge sundae or a few packets of Oreos with your afternoon tea or coffee just doesn’t sound or look as sophisticated as settling down in the afternoon with a hot drink and a scone. Why is that?

I don’t normally care for scones, which is why I decided to jazz them up. The strawberry jam is allowed to infuse with the milk, creating a wonderful subtle strawberry flavor which pairs really well with the white chocolate. I know it’s probably 90+°F where you are right now, but I promise it’s worth turning the oven on to taste these scones.

Strawberry & White Chocolate Scones

Makes 7-8 large scones

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

Pinch salt

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup cold butter, cubed

½ cup milk

1 cup strawberry jam

1/2 cup white chocolate chunks/chips

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400⁰F/200⁰C and whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

2. Rub the butter in with your fingertips until you’ve got a mixture of large coarse crumbs and smaller fine crumbs. Stir in the white chocolate.

3. Beat the milk and jam together until well combined. (I can’t help but think this would go great with cereal!) Pour it into the scone dough.

4. Lightly beat the egg with the vanilla and add it to the scone mix. Stir until just combined – if you over-mix you’ll crush the coarse lumps of butter and won’t get light fluffy scones. If your dough is on the wet side, stir in some more flour until it’s manageable.

5. Scoop 1/3 cup-portions of the dough onto a baking tray – be sure to spread them out because they’re going to bake upwards and outwards.

6. Bake for around 20 minutes, or until the edges of the scones turn golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Now go and bake these so you can spend the rest of Friday lounging by the pool with a plate piled high with fluffy, buttery scones. Happy Friday!

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Double Chocolate Whole Wheat Buttermilk Scones

It’s finally Friday and I’ve worked my butt of this week, punching more words into my keyboard than I ever thought possible, reaching unbelievable deadlines and foolishly taking on even more work so I can contemplate buying a pretty shiny Samsung S3 next month. I deserve some chocolate in my breakfast and you do, too!

I’m not just talking about a couple of dark chocolate chips in otherwise boring muesli, or maybe a hot chocolate instead of the usual tea or coffee. Oh no.

I’m talking about great big fully chocolate scones that look more like XXL chocolate cookies. Coat these scones in butter, peanut butter or even Nutella if you’re looking for a chocolate overdose and enjoy with the thought that the weekend is only a couple of hours away.

Double Chocolate Whole Wheat Buttermilk Scones

Adapted from Cocoa Buttermilk Breakfast Biscuits – How Sweet It Is

Makes 12-15 scones

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup chocolate chips

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

Pinch salt

¾ cup cold butter, cut into pieces

1 cup buttermilk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F/220°C and combine flour, cocoa, sugar, chocolate chips, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk until combined.

2. Rub the cold butter into the mix with your fingertips until you have a consistency which is mostly small crumbs with some larger coarse crumbs of butter.

3. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla until just combined – be very careful not to over-mix! I did and my scones turned out much flatter than they should have.

4. Use ¼ cup measure to drop batter onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the scones are solid and just beginning to turn golden on the edges.

These scones get very lonely on their own and are best eaten in 3s or 4s.

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Blueberry Scones with Lemon Sugar Topping

I have created the best scone recipe ever. Or at least the best scones I’ve ever made before. This blueberry scone recipe creates fluffy, buttery scones which are so light they practically float into your mouth (in large numbers). The lemon sugar topping might be a bit much for people who prefer their scones leaning towards the savoury side (I don’t know if these people genuinely exist, I’ve just heard rumours), but I think it complements the scones perfectly.

You can devour one for breakfast, nibble on one for a snack, gobble a couple for lunch, chomp one for another snack, gorge on a few for dinner and pick at one for dessert and you wouldn’t get sick of them, they really are that good.

I baked the scones individually because we like fluffy and soft insides with crisp and crunchy edges around here. If you’re more into soft insides and outsides, roll all the dough into a large ball on your baking tray, flatten it slightly and score enough straight lines to make eight separate triangular-shaped scones. Bake as usual – maybe a touch longer than 20 minutes – and you’ll get soft, fluffy outsides as well as insides.

Fortunately this recipe only makes eight scones, but if you’re feeling indulgent you could easily double it... or triple it... or quadruple it... or – okay, I’m getting carried away now. Just get into the kitchen and make some! (And maybe drop some off at my house because I’m all out of blueberries.)

Blueberry Scones with Lemon Sugar Topping

Ingredients

2 cups flour

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Zest of ½ lemon

½ cup cold butter chopped into small cubes

1 egg, lightly beaten

½ cup milk

½ cup blueberries fresh, frozen or dried

Topping

Zest of ½ lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons sugar

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C and mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and salt.

2. Rub the butter in with your fingertips until you have a mixture of small and medium-sized balls of butter. Having medium-sized balls of butter in your dough is what will make the scones flaky – very important!

3. Pour the milk, egg and blueberries into the bowl and mix until just combined, we don’t want to destroy the balls of butter.

4. Separate your dough into 8 pieces and roll each one into a ball. Place each ball onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper and slightly flatten with the palm of your hand. Make sure your scones are well spread-out – they will bake outwards.

5. For the sugar topping, rub together the lemon zest, juice and sugar. Brush a little milk over the tops of the scones then sprinkle on the sugar topping. Press it down with your finger tips to make sure it sticks.

6. Bake for around 20 minutes or until the scones are golden brown. Leave to cool slightly on a wire rack and serve whilst warm.

Try not to pass out from the overwhelming happy sensation in your tummy.



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Very Berry Valentine Scones

These heart-shaped scones are jam packed with juicy berries and they're just perfect for treating that special someone on Valentine's Day. Do you have any fabulous Valentine's recipes of your own? Share them in the comments section - I'd love to see them!

The scones are more on the savoury-side, which makes them ideal for loading up with butter, jam, Nutella, peanut butter or whatever sweet topping tickles your fancy.

The drizzle you can see on these scones is just melted white chocolate - it didn't come out as thick as I intended!

It really depends on the size of your cutter how many scones this recipes yields. Using a large cutter, I managed to make 4 scones.

Ingredients

200g plain flour

100g self-raising flour

4 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

75g unsalted butter, softened

70g caster sugar

1 egg

100ml cream

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1 handful of mixed berries 

A few drops of pink food colouring

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 200C and lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.

3. If you’re using fresh berries, simply stir them into the mixture. If you’re using frozen berries, make sure they’re fully defrosted then dry them really well before mixing them in.

4. Separately, beat the egg and cream together with the vanilla extract and a few drops of pink food colouring. Pour this into the flour mixture and bring together with your hands until it forms dough. 

5. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead very briefly to form a smooth ball.

6. Gently roll the dough out to a thickness of about 4cm. Use a heart-shaped cutter to cut out the scones and place them on the baking sheet. 

7. Brush the tops of the scones with milk, making sure the milk doesn't flow down the side, and bake for about 20 minutes until risen.

Pumpkin Scones

A simple pumpkin recipe that is perfect for the cooler months. I made these using my own pumpkin purée which was much easier than I thought it would be.

To make pumpkin purée, all you have to do is cut your pumpkin into sections and place them face-down in on oven on a medium heat. Roast for about an hour or so and leave to cool. When cool, scrape out the insides of the pumpkin and blend. Easy!

I used Joyofbaking's basic recipe and tailored it to my needs. This recipe yields 8 large scones.

Ingredients

260g flour

70g Brown sugar

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

113g butter

50g raisins

80-120ml cream

120ml pumpkin puree

1tsp vanilla extract

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.

3. Cut the butter into cubes and rub into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the raisins and stir.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, pumpkin puree and vanilla. Pour this into the flour mix and stir until just combined.

5. Place the dough on a lightly-floured surface and knead gently for about a minute. Pat the dough into a circle and cut into 8 triangles.

6. Place the scones on a baking sheet and brush the scones with egg wash.

7. Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

Fruit Scones

I used to really struggle making scones - they would never rise. I decided to pick a simple recipe and alter it until I found my perfect scones. Originally, the recipe called for 300g of plain flour. When I first made the scones, I didn't have enough and substiuted 100g with self-raising flour. The result? Splendidly light scones!

Unfortunately, this picture was taken by me. I'm sure my photograpy skills will improve soon. Or at least I really hope they do.

This recipe yields around six to eight scones.

Ingredients
200g plain flour
100g self-raising flour
4 tsp baking powder

good handful of raisins
Pinch of salt
75g unsalted butter, softened
70g caster sugar
1 egg
120ml cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 200 C and lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. 

3. Add the butter and rub in with your fingers until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and add the fruit.

4. Beat the egg and cream together, with the vanilla extract. Pour into the flour mixture and bring together lightly with your hands into a dough. 

5. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead very briefly to form a fairly smooth ball.

6. Gently roll the dough out to a thickness of about 4cm. Use something round (such as a mug) to cut out the scones and place them on the baking sheet. 

7. Brush the tops of the scones with milk, making sure the milk doesn't flow down the side, and bake for about 15 minutes until risen and golden.