Scones with chocolate chips

When Cassie and I first started documenting our baking adventures in the kitchen, we let some people know we were looking for some family favorites to try out. I have a few recipes from my Grandma, my sister, my mom, a couple of Aunts, that are really good. And I'll post about all of them, eventually. But we like to try new things, test our skills, see if we can do it with what we have here at the house.

And make a mess of the kitchen!

It's part of our girl time.

Cassie is the most hands on. She and I will get in there, roll up our sleeves, put an apron on and even sometimes talk the entire time with an accent, maybe British, maybe German, maybe Italian. I'm sure we are insulting all of them with our terrible renditions, but we have fun. Maybe we're just trying to channel Julia Child.

Grace likes to take my pictures for me, and she's pretty good at it. She gets a different angle than me (being so much shorter.) And is always ready to taste test batter or clean up beaters (lick them.)


And CJ loves to try it all out. Now I have to say, he'll eat anything but he will tell me if it's good or bad. And he's starting to think he's a food critic. "maybe if you add a little...." or " I think it could use some...." But that's ok, he's thinking about cooking and how to spice something up which he'll need when he's living on his own and can only afford a box of noodles and some broth!

So back to today's recipe. My cousin Kim sent it to me, one of her favorites! When I read it the first time, I was intimidated. Not by what it was, a scone is after all, an English sweet biscuit of sorts. No, the very first direction was put stuff in a food processor. I don't have one of those. Then a little further down, when you are done with the food processor, put it in your Kitchenaid stand mixer. I didn't have one of those either. So I put off making this recipe for a few months.

Well, I got my Kitchenaid, finally, so I decided it was time to tackle this recipe, without a food processor. And it can be done. In fact, it was easy!

So if you don't have a food processor or a stand mixer, don't be put off, you can still do this. Just work with what you have.

Chocolate Chip Scones
       from Kim Roberson

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, sliced to 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 425 degrees.

Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl (or bowl of a food processor fitted with steel blade.) Whisk together (or pulse six times.)

  If making by hand, use two knives or a pastry blender (or your fingers) and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. (If using a food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second.)

Stir in Chocolate chips (add chocolate chips to food processor and pulse one more time.)

Stir in heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form

Or if using mixer, blend on low speed.

Remove from bowl and knead by hand any crumbs into your dough, just until it all comes together.

Now you need to shape and cut. Kim's directions confused me (which isn't hard to do) so here's what I ended up doing.

Divide dough in half (or thirds if you want thinner or smaller scones)

Lightly flour the bottom (outside) of a cake pan

Press one half of your dough out on the cake pan to resemble a circle, make sure to have even thickness all around (mine were fat in the center)

Then using a knife or a bench scraper cut into eight wedges.

Transfer wedges to ungreased baking sheet

And bake 12 to 15 minutes until tops are a light brown.

Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Store in air tight container. These will keep for several days, if they last that long. I love this recipe! Slightly sweet, but not like a cake, and the possibilities, change out the chocolate chips for a dried fruit or nuts, add some spices maybe? We'll be playing with this recipe! Thanks Kim!



A few notes:

The rose came from our yard and is probably the last one for the year (cold weather finally has arrived.)

I'm toying with using the silicone mats. I priced a Silplat and the cheapest I found was $22. Then there was another brand for $14. This one was $5.99 and according to the girls at Kitchen Collection Silicone is silicone and will all work the same. Would love some input on the silicone mats, Christmas is coming and I need to start making my wish list!