Nutella Scones
So, this morning I woke up craving scones, and a few months ago I found this really great "Starbucks Cinnamon Scone Hack" recipe. It's pretty basic and I've gotten great results every time! But instead of sugar and cinnamon, I wanted to change it up a bit. Time to experiment. But because this is such a great basic recipe to start with, I honestly just stuck to her original, adding a little variation of my own: Nutella.
Here goes.
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into small cubes
1 egg, separated
3 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup buttermilk*
1 egg, separated
3 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup buttermilk*
1 tsp vanilla
Moving along,
Combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in a medium/large bowl.
Cut in the butter. Here, I prefer to cut the cold butter into fairly small cubes before adding to the mixture. And while there are much more technical ways to "cut in" the butter, I prefer to do it by hand. Get your hands dirty; so much more satisfying.
Basically, I mix the butter and dry mixture together by kind of squashing the butter in my hands so that the chucks break up and incorporate with the butter. Fair warning, you do wanna be a little careful doing it my hand because obviously if you work it too much, you're hands will warm up the butter and that's no good.
After a few minutes you shouldn't have any large chunks of butter and the mixture will be crumbly.
Like this:
Add this wet mixture to the dry and stir just until blended. It should resemble something similar to cookie dough. Mine was a little too wet this morning, so I add about an extra tbsp of flour.
Cut this disc of awesome into 8 pieces (more or less if you feel like), basically just cut it like a pizza.
Nutella (I don't have an exact measurement here, I just eyeballed it. Maybe about 2 tbsp)
*In place of buttermilk (because we never have buttermilk just hanging about) measure out the milk and then add a splash of lemon juice. Mix and let it sit for a few minutes. I learned this substitution trick from this recipe and I have always used it since! I always mix this first to give it time to sit.
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| *Buttermilk substitute: 1/3 cup milk + a splash of lemon juice. Stir & let it sit for at least a few minutes. |
Moving along,
Combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in a medium/large bowl.
Cut in the butter. Here, I prefer to cut the cold butter into fairly small cubes before adding to the mixture. And while there are much more technical ways to "cut in" the butter, I prefer to do it by hand. Get your hands dirty; so much more satisfying.
Basically, I mix the butter and dry mixture together by kind of squashing the butter in my hands so that the chucks break up and incorporate with the butter. Fair warning, you do wanna be a little careful doing it my hand because obviously if you work it too much, you're hands will warm up the butter and that's no good.
After a few minutes you shouldn't have any large chunks of butter and the mixture will be crumbly.
Like this:
In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk substitute, egg yolk (keep the white!), and honey together. This is a weird thick mixture at first because of the honey, but after a few minutes it will come together. After mixing I added a teaspoon of vanilla, just for that extra bit of flavor.
Add this wet mixture to the dry and stir just until blended. It should resemble something similar to cookie dough. Mine was a little too wet this morning, so I add about an extra tbsp of flour.
And then, at the last minute I decided I was just going to mix some Nutella right into the dough. (Originally, I was just going to make a Nutella glaze, this plan went much better!)
I don't know quite how much Nutella went into this.. I would guess maybe about 1 1/2-2 tbsp? I just got two butter knifes full of Nutella and loosely mixed it into the dough to get a sort of marbled effect.
Next, move the dough to a floured surface and pat the dough out into a circle-ish shape. Probably about a half an inch thick or so. As usually.. I just eyeball it.
 |
| Look at those awesome Nutella swirls! I was getting pretty excited at this point. |
Place on a greased baking sheet and brush the tops with you egg white.
Bake at 400° for about 8-10 minutes.
Bake time depends a little on the size, so keep an eye and decide for yourself. They should be looking just a little golden around the edges and flaky! And if all else fails, look at the bottom. I let them sit on the tray for just a minute and then move them over to a wire rack because no one likes burnt bottoms.
While letting these guys cool just a little, I made a real quick glaze by mixing together:
A scant cup of powdered sugar
About 1 1/2 tsp of milk
1/2 tsp of light corn syrup
And just a little bit of vanilla
(I was just making this up as I went sooooo do whatever works for you)
After they cool down a little drizzle glaze over scones and boom!
These guys are definitely best when fresh and warm! And with a cup of coffee/tea (or whatever pleases you). Soooo get to it!
I was pretty pleased with these considering they were somewhat experimental. Definitely a keeper.
