Chocolate Chip Breakfast Scones

Use a heart shaped cookie cutter and surprise loved ones with a warm breakfast treat that says
I Love You.

As February approached this year, I decided to re-visit a few of my favorite chocolate recipes. This scone recipe has a sweet history (pun intended) and is now a breakfast favorite in our house. These chocolate chip scones are the perfect beginning to any day--but would be especially nice on Valentine's Day.

When I remodeled the Austin kitchen a few years ago, I thought it would be very organized of me to create two large recipe file drawers. In it I placed large ringed binders to hold all the recipes I had collected over the years from friends, family, favorite magazines, and more recently, Internet food sites and blogs. The idea was great--but after years of hastily removing and adding new pages to each binder, the drawers became self-made disaster areas.


Each time I searched for a recipe and had to pull out the heavy drawer, I pledged to edit the bulging mess. One weary winter morning a few years ago, I finally took the plunge. Weeks later, I emerged from my post at the dining room table, not only with edited and organized recipes, but with a new recipe that would eventually become a morning favorite. Lucky for all of us, as I sorted through the Breakfast binder, this card slipped out of its plastic holder onto the floor. Dated 1987 and handwritten by me on an  4x5" index card (testing my audience's age now), it was simply titled English Breakfast Scones--400°--BLT.

As I read the card, I knew exactly when I had written it and tears filled my eyes. What a sweet memory! It was 1987, and my son was only a few months old. We had flown to Colorado to visit his grandmother. The two of us were up before sunrise for the morning bottle. The house was quiet, and Chris had fallen back asleep. I was, however, now up for the day. To entertain myself until the rest of the family emerged for breakfast, I sipped coffee and flipped through my mother-in-law's recipe drawer. There were so many family recipes that I had never seen or tasted before! I filled the time by copying recipes onto 4X5 index cards that morning: Aunt Nell's Seven-Day Slaw, Beef Stroganoff, Granny's Pound Cake, German Chocolate Cake, Buttermilk Pancakes, Southern Biscuits, and English Breakfast Scones. I placed the recipe card in the front of the Breakfast binder as a reminder to give this one a try.

The first time I made the recipe, my nieces Emma and Julia were visiting--over twenty years after I had copied down the recipe. I had planned  chocolate chip pancakes, their favorite, for breakfast, but I didn't have buttermilk. As I flipped through the Breakfast binder looking for inspiration, I found the scone recipe. I only had White Lily all-purpose flour that day, but had leftover heavy cream from strawberry shortcake. I was out of unsalted butter, but had margarine leftover from a Texas sheet cake recipe. And I had raisins in the pantry. Talk about something meant to be...or meant to try! I always have all-purpose flour and unsalted butter on hand, and rarely ever use margarine. Guess I was supposed to finally give Betty's recipe for English scones a try.

I would eventually make the recipe with all-purpose flour and unsalted butter, but dozens of batches later, I still prefer the unsalted butter and lighter Southern flour combination. If you've never used White Lily flour before, it has a low protein and gluten content and is used throughout the South for biscuits, quick breads, and cakes. Most grocery stores carry it now, but you can also order it online if you want to give it a try.

When the girls saw raisins were in the recipe, they begged me to use chocolate chips--didn't take much convincing on my end though--definitely not much of a raisin fan. The smell from the oven that morning of sweet chocolate, almond, vanilla, and sugar made it almost unbearable to wait. As they bit into their warm scones, I asked the nieces for a thumbs up or thumbs down review. Both replied with mouth's full..."awesome Aunt Debbie!" We now call them Awesome English Breakfast Scones.

Awesome English Breakfast Scones
recipe by BLT
makes 6 large or 8 small triangles

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (White Lily preferred, add 2 tbsp extra per cup)*
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter or good quality margarine, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (original recipe called for raisins)
1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream, plus 1 tablespoon for glazing
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (I added to original recipe)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (I added--great combined with the chocolate)
Turbinado sugar (or regular) for dusting--makes the tops glisten

* If using White Lily flour, follow measurement directions and add 2 tablespoons more flour per cup.

Preheat oven to 400°.

Line a large baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper.

Add first 4 ingredients into large bowl and stir to combine. Add chilled butter and cut into flour with pastry blender--you know that half moon wire thing your mother always used before food processors--until mixture resembles coarse meal. If you don't have a pastry blender, use two forks. Work quickly. You want the butter to stay cold. With a fork, gently stir in chocolate chips (or whatever flavoring you decide to use). Don't overwork dough.


Whisk cream and eggs in separate bowl until blended. Add vanilla and almond extracts and whisk to combine. Pour cream mixture over crumb mixture and stir with fork until just combined. Do not over mix or you will have tough scones. The dough will be very sticky.

Transfer the dough mixture to a floured work surface--don't worry if it is not all mixed together-just press it together gently with your hands to form a circle about 1 1/2" thick deep. Do not knead. Just pat and gently form. It will easily come together.

Dip pastry scraper or sharp knife into flour and cut the circle into 6-8 triangles. My mother-in-law uses a biscuit cutter, but I like triangles. Use any shape you like--hearts, circles, squares, just dust cutter with flour first.

With a floured pastry scraper or knife, lift the scones onto prepared baking sheet. Brush gently with heavy cream and dust with coarse Turbinado sugar or plain sugar.
 


Bake 10 minutes at 400°F, then reduce the heat to 350°F and continue baking until light golden brown, about 18 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. They keep for up to two days and reheat well. You can also freeze. Once cool, I display them out on the counter inside a covered glass cake dish-- so beautiful and fragrant.

While chocolate chip still reigns #1 in our house, fresh blueberry scones are also delicious.

And in case you don't remember what a pastry blender or scraper looks like....a photo reminder.

Left to right: pastry brush, pastry or bench scraper, pastry blender, Silpat mat.

For more about White Lily Flour or to order, please visit their website. Below is a brief explanation from their site about soft wheat flour vs. hard wheat flour.

What is soft wheat flour?

Soft winter wheat is a variety of wheat that has low protein content and low gluten content. It is the type of flour recommended for cakes, biscuits and quick breads. White Lily® Flour is lower in protein content because the soft wheat is pure-- not blended with hard wheat. Hard wheat has a much higher protein content and gluten content.

Can I substitute White Lily flour for recipes using other all-purpose flours?

White Lily Flour can be substituted for other All-Purpose Flours; however, White Lily Flour is lighter. So, more flour must be added. For every cup of flour in a recipe, use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of White Lily Flour. The weight of White Lily Flour will be the same as the weight of other All-Purpose Flours. Since bags are packaged by weight, you will get the same number of portions from White Lily Flour as with other flours.

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