How To Make Chocolate Scones
I love a good scone! Yep, I have talked about it before. It is just nice to sit with a cup of coffee (my favorite is cold brew coffee – even in winter!) and enjoy a nice baked good. I am a bit of a dunker so coffee and a scone works for me on lots of levels. Sometimes, though, it is nice to change it up a bit. Why go plain when you can have chocolate? Since I have been on a bit of a chocolate kick, I figured a how to make chocolate scones post would be good.
How To Make Chocolate Scones – The Scone Part
If you know how to make scones, you know how to make chocolate scones. The foundations are the same. Yep, you guessed it, you have to cut butter into flour. There are many ways to cut butter into flour, but any will do. There is nothing special in the leavening either. The chocolate scone is raised with baking powder. That leaves the obvious – the chocolate and cocoa powder.
How To Make Chocolate Scones – The Chocolate
Yep – here is the obvious part. It takes good chocolate and good cocao powder to make a nice chocolate scone. First, the chocolate. I like a good 70% cocoa. You can go higher if you want your chocolate scones to be extra dark. This would be wonderful with a nice milky sweet coffee or tea! I usually buy a bar of my favrote 70% cocoa chocolate the chop it up with a knife. This helps ensure big chunks of chocolate. You could also use chocolate chips. No, its not the most refined or even the best chocolate, but it won’t be bad.
How To Make Chocolate Scones – The Cocoa
That leaves the cocoa powder. Try and find a nice Dutch processed cocao powder. Of course, the best cocoa powder is sometimes the one that is readily available. The regular cocoa powder at the store will work very nicely. Sometimes it is better to err on the side of getting things made vs the side of getting things made with the best of the best of the best. Just get some ingredients and go for it!
How To Make Chocolate Scones – The Technique, Some Indulgence, A Video and Recipe
As for technique, you will need to do a little folding of the dough to give the scones good a good flaky tenderness. It is all in the recipe below. More importantly, I should warn you that sometimes my chocolate scones get a little more rich than is probably warranted. I like to top them with a little vanilla glaze. What could be more indulgent than a flaky tender rich chocolate scone drizzled in a vanilla, powdered sugar glaze. Don’t worry, even with the glaze you can still dunk it in a cup of coffee!
The ‘How To Make Chocolate Scones’ video is below and the full recipe follows.
- 4 oz 70% or 85% cocoa chocolate
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup of sugar
- ½ cup of cocoa powder
- 1 stick of butter – very cold
- 2/3 cup of cold milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- sugar for sprinkling
- Preheat the oven to 425F.
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, baking powder, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix well. Pulse together if using the food processor.
- Add the cold butter. Using the food processor, a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut the butter into the flour until it is fully incorporated and the texture is like sand with no large lumps of butter.
- Mix the chopped chocolate into the butter/flour mixture.
- Pour the butter/flour/chocolate mixture on to a clean work surface.
- In a small bowl, beat the wet ingredients together with a fork. Pour the wet ingredients into the center of the butter/flour/chocolate mixture.
- Using a fork, slowly stir the butter/flour/chocolate mixture into the wet ingredients. After a few stirs, when the mixture in the well is getting thick, start folding the butter/flour/chocolate mixture into the center of the well. Continue folding the ingredients together until a soft dough is formed.
- Shape the dough into a small square (4x4 inches or so). Using a rolling pin, roll the square into a rectangle. Fold the dough in half, turn it 90 degrees and roll it back out into a rectangle. Repeat rolling, folding and re-rolling 4 or 5 times. If the dough is sticky, apply flour to the pin, work surface and dough as needed.
- Roll the dough into a 12x5in rectangle a final time so it is about 1 inch thick. Cut the dough into scones using a 2.5 inch biscuit cutter. Don’t twist the cutter when cutting, just push straight down. Re-roll any extra dough and cut into scones.
- Transfer the cut scones to a baking tray lined with parchment or sprayed with non-stick spray.
- Using a brush, brush the tops of the scones with melted butter. Sprinkle the tops with sugar.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until the scones rise and they are cooked through.
- Serve warm!
- If you want to glaze the scones, omit the sugar in the last step before baking. Bake the scones as directed. In a small bowl, mix a few tablespoons of powdered sugar with a few tablespoons of milk until a glaze constancy is reached. After the scones cool, drizzle on the glaze.
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Have you ever made dark chocolate scones? Have any tips to share? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.
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