mulberryshoots

Today, I watched someone on a cooking show make scones and it inspired me to make a half batch of my own for dinner tonight. I used Ina Garten’s recipe for maple-oatmeal scones but I cut it in half. The other thing that I did was to process the entire dough in my Cuisinart and patted the dough into shape with my hands rather than handling it further by rolling it out.

In order to make it easier to follow, I hand-copied out the ingredients halved in order to make about half a dozen scones. I had two sticks of unsalted butter, fresh buttermilk, and two large eggs in the fridge. The dry ingredients were readily available also, which I added together in my Cuisinart, whisking it together to blend before I added the cold butter. Then, I gently pulsed the mixture until the butter became small fingertip sized bits in the flour/oatmeal mixture.  The wet ingredients went in next – just a quarter cup each of buttermilk and sugarless maple syrup plus the eggs. Pulsed it some more and the batter was a little sticky but mixed together. Rather than add more flour, I floured a silit pad and added the sticky batter, rolling it in a little flour to offset the stickiness. Instead of rolling the dough with a rolling pin, I gently patted it with my fingers to about 3/4 of an inch thick.

I used my crimp edged 3-inch biscuit cutter (dipped in flour) and placed six tender scones on a baking sheet lined with pre-oiled aluminum foil. Brushed egg wash on the top and slid them into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. When they came out of the oven, I brushed the egg wash on again while they were hot and sprinkled oats on the top.

Tonight, we’re having wild-caught haddock, fresh spinach with garlic and these scones. If we’re going to have a few carbs once in awhile, this is a great way to have ’em!