I've been seeing lots of scone recipes lately. There's one in my Forgotten Skills of Cooking cookbook that uses fresh (wild) blueberries. I saw Buttermilk-Cherry Scones in Mary Jane's Farm Magazine that are baked in a cast iron skillet. And most recently I spotted a chocolate and orange scone recipe on the Joy the Baker blog. They all look delish and all a little different. I decided to use the Mary Jane's Farm recipe and change it up a little bit (also, this was the only one that doesn't call for eggs, and I was out of eggs this morning) by using whole wheat flour and flaxseed and cutting down on the amount of butter. I love the crust formed on the bottom from baking in the cast iron skillet. These were melt-in-your mouth tender and the flavor combination was divine.
I took this photo pre-glaze...the glaze adds a nice shiny top to the scones.
Blueberry, Chocolate and Orange Buttermilk Scones
(adapted from Mary Jane's Farm Magazine)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
a handful of flaxseed
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
7-8 tablespoons of cold butter, cut into chunks (I used what was left of the stick after buttering my skillet)
3/4 - 1 cup of blueberries
a handful or two of chocolate chips
1-2 T orange zest
1 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I ended up using about 1 1/2 cups to make my dough)
Note: If you don't have buttermilk, you can sour your milk by adding 1 T of white vinegar to 2 cups of milk. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so until it thickens. I store this in a mason jar in the fridge for when I need buttermilk.
Glaze:
1 T heavy cream (you could substitute milk here and just have a less decadent glaze)
1/4 t cinnamon
2 T powdered sugar
1. Preheat oven to 400º. Butter a 12" cast-iron skillet.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flours, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the butter and beat with an electric hand mixer until just blended (I cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until it looked crumbly...no mixer necessary). Stir in the blueberries, chocolate chips and orange zest. Gradually add the buttermilk until all the dry ingredients are incorporated and a dough is formed (here is where I needed about a 1/2 cup more buttermilk than what was called for in the original recipe. I also got messy and used my hands to get all the dry ingredients incorporated).
3. Form a ball with the dough and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Press the dough into an 8" inch circle, about 1/2" - 3/4" thick. Cut the circle into eight wedges.
4. Place the scones 1/2" apart in the prepared skillet (mine were closer together than this and they baked up with no problems). Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden.
5. While the scones are cooking, whisk together the glaze ingredients.
6. Remove scones from oven and brush on the glaze. Allow to cool completely (or don't, we didn't and man those warm scones were awesome! Lovely crust on the bottom and tender on the inside. Mmmmmm!)
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