Recipe: Dark Chocolate Egg Nog Scones with coffee glaze

GoGot Eggnog?

Make some Holiday scones with the little bit of eggnog left after the party.

Dark Chocolate Eggnog Scones with Coffee Glaze

I bought some eggnog just in case anyone stopped by and I wanted to serve them a glass of some but I didn't end up drinking it so i thought it would be a great substitute for buttermilk in scones so I thought about what I would like to pair it with and of course my favourite chocolate would do the trick and make a delicious flavour combo.

Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:

Scones:

2 cups of sifted flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of cold grated butter

1 egg

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup of Eggnog

1/2 cup of chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips

reserve a couple of tablespoons of eggnog for the top and flour for the board to roll out.

Coffee Glaze:

1 tsp instant coffee 

1 tbsp hot water

1/2 cup icing sugar approx.

Directions:

In a medium sized bowl sift the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix it up with a fork or a whisk and add the sugar and mix again.

Grate a half a cup of cold butter right into the dry ingredients and mix with a for or pastry cutter until it's combined into little pea shaped bits and then mix the wet ingredients.

In a measuring cup crack 1egg and whisk it up for a few minutes and then add a 1/2 cup of eggnog and a tablespoon of vanilla and mix well.

Chop 1/2 cup of chopped dark chocolate or measure a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

Add the wet egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a fork or wooden spoon until combined and before all the flour is mixed in add the chopped dark chocolate and mix until combined.  It should slightly come together but don't mix it too much or it will become tough.

Dump the mixture out onto a floured board and knead it all together until it's all mixed and pat it down into a dinner plate sized flat shape.

You can cut it with round biscuit or cookie cutters or you can just cut it into pie slices by cutting in  half and then quarters and then cutting each quarter in half if you want them smaller.  

I didn't cut mine out that great but it didn't matter but it does matter that they are similar in size so they can bake the same.  

Place on a baking tray and you can line it with parchment if you like.  I didn't bother this time.

Brush the top with the reserved eggnog and place in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 -20 minutes depending on how hot your oven is.  Remove when they are brown on the bottom and golden brown on top.

To make the glaze in a small bowl mix the hot coffee with the instant coffee and mix well and then add icing sugar until you get a runny icing paste.

Drizzle with a fork on the Scones just out of the oven and they will dry once the scones are cooled.

Serve immediately.

Makes 12 large scones.

Goes great with eggnog or hot coffee and would make a great Christmas or Boxing Day breakfast.

Sweet Heart Chocolate Chip Scones

Chocolate Chip Heart Shaped Scones

Why not make a simple but thoughtful breakfast for yourself or for someone else this Valentine's Day.  Skip the expensive dinner and start your day with a sweet little touch of goodness.

I was thinking about making some chocolate chip scones and since tomorrow is Valentine's Day I was inspired to make some heart shaped Chocolate Chip scones.  I have to say that they turned out to be the best scones that I ever made.  Almost like a light cookie.  I didn't want to make them into rock scones so I was very careful not to over work them.

As usual I just cook a lot by feel so I will try and approximate the ingredients that I put into these scones.  I will give you all the ingredients but you may have to just work with it to get it to the right consistency to get it right.

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 cup of sugar
1 cup of milk
1/2 lemon juiced
1tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup of cubed cold butter

Topping
1 egg beaten
2 tbsp Turbonado sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 400F.

In a large bowl add the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.  Whisk until all the ingredients are distributed throughout.

In a measuring cup add the milk and add the juice of half a lemon.  Set aside.

Cut the cold butter into small cubes and add them to the flour mixture.  With your hands or a pastry cutter mix the butter and flour between your fingers until the mixture is a sandy texture.  You can add butter or flour until you get the right consistency.  When you squeeze some in your hand it should stick together like when you make sand castles.

Add the chocolate chips and mix throughout the flour mixture.

Add the vanilla to the milk mixture and stir.   Then pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until the mixture comes together and away from the bowl.   I left my dough fairly loose.  Make sure you don't over mix it.  You just want it to come together to be able to have them hold to roll out.

Dump the mixture onto a lightly floured board.  I didn't roll the dough I just patted it down to a 1/2 inch thickness.  You can roll it to get a smoother top finish.   For me the less tools I have to wash the better.  Use your hands.. that way you put some love into them.  Yes it makes a difference.

I used 2 different sized heart shaped cookie cutters mostly because I wanted to see which came out better and also so that I didn't have to re work the leftover scraps much.

Place the cut out scones on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
Brush the tops with the egg wash and then sprinkle turbonado sugar on top.  I suppose you could use colored sugar to be fancy too but consider the color of the chocolate chips.  It might not look that great.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until brown on the bottom and slightly golden on top.   Keep checking your oven because it may take more or less time.

Use this as a guideline but I basically just dumped and stirred and didn't measure anything exactly.  This is grandmother cooking.. even though my grandmother and my mother never made scones I still learned how to guestimate some baking from my mom.  I think she only measured a few recipes and then winged the rest.   Learn to wing it so that you can get creative with your recipes.   I added cinnamon and vanilla to boost the chocolate flavour.   Also cinnamon regulates blood sugar so it's a good thing when you bake.

My batch turned out great and I hope if you try them you will like them as much as I did.

Oh and I had them with Cherry Blossom Lemon Lilly Tea from Postal Teas.  The hint of cherry was a nice pairing with the chocolate chips.