This is the skinny on eating better!
Now you can drink your coffee and eat it, too! Enjoy the deliciousness of your favorite flavored coffee with chocolate inside these very easy to make frosted scones. They are sooooo EASY to make!
The decaf coffee makes it better for you, and if you substitute shortening for the butter, that's better, too!
These scones are mocha inside and iced on the top with a delicious frosting. If you’ve ever been unsure of making scones, this recipe will show you just how easy it is to make something scrumptious to go with your morning or afternoon coffee or even as a dessert after a meal. They’re not just for breakfast, you know.
First mix all the dry ingredients along with your favorite finely ground flavored coffee beans. I personally use decaf vanilla hazelnut coffee beans which I use every single day for my relaxing coffee fix. Cut the cold butter chunks into the flour, coffee, and oats mixture, then add the heavy cream and egg. Lay it out on parchment paper to form into a ¾” thick disc, refrigerate, slice and bake. It’s as easy as that!
This recipe makes 6-8 medium scones.
Prep your pan:
- Cut one sheet of parchment paper to fit a large pizza pan, about 15” in diameter. If you don’t have a large pizza pan, just use a large cookie sheet.
- Make sure your parchment paper is rated for 350F degrees or higher. I opt for parchment paper that is rated for 400F degrees or higher.
Preheat your oven:
- Set your oven for 350F degrees a few minutes before you’re ready to bake.
Gather your Ingredients:
1 1/2 C Flour
¼ C Oats, old fashioned rolled, chopped
3 T Sugar
1 T Baking powder
1 T espresso powder (or fine double ground coffee beans)
Pinch of Salt
8 T Butter (1 stick)
½ C Semi-sweet chocolate chips, mini sized
6 T Heavy cream
1 Egg
1 t Vanilla extract
Mix up your scones:
- Finely chop the oats. You can do it in a blender or food processor, but why dirty that appliance when you can easily chop the oats on a cutting board? It only takes a minute - there’s no mess and it’s easy to clean up. First, I make a little pile of the oats, and chop them with a large knife that has a rounded blade. Since I’m right-handed, I hold the handle in my right hand, hold the point on the board with my left hand. Then I rock the blade over the little pile of oats, moving it back and forth chopping the oats. I never lift the point of the knife off the cutting board, keeping the point of the blade in the same spot, rotating the handle end back and forth over the oats. They are chopped finely in just a few seconds. Plus, they don’t spurt all over the board or onto the floor.
- Stir together the flour, sugar, ground oats, baking powder, salt.
- Cut the butter into small chunks and plop into the dry mixture. I swish the dry mixture around so each chunk of butter is covered, so they don’t stick together.
- Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry mixture, until the mixture resembles small pebbles. You want the butter to be cut up into small pieces so there are many many little chunks of butter spread around in the dry mix. Set aside.
- Whisk the heavy cream, egg and vanilla extract together.
- If you don’t have heavy cream, here’s an easy substitution you can create with whole milk and butter. To make one cup of heavy cream, mix 2/3 cup whole milk with 1/3 cut melted butter. Let the butter cool a little and whisk them together. For this recipe I mix what’s needed to make a half cup of heavy cream and then measure out the 6 tablespoons I need, using almost all of it.
- Mix the wet and dry mixtures, stirring gently. The mix will be crumbly. That’s what you want. If it’s not crumbly, add a little more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. If it’s way too crumbly, add just a little more heavy cream, 1 teaspoon at a time. It should be a crumbly mixture that doesn't look like it won't come together to make a disc, but it will as you form it with your hands.
Form your ¾” thick disc:
- Spread a little flour out on the parchment paper. Turn the crumbly dough out onto the parchment paper and with your hands, pat everything together and form it into a disc. Make it about ¾” thick. You may want to use a rolling pin but I find it much easier to do it with my hands, flattening it as I work the disc round and round. Give yourself plenty of room on the counter since the parchment paper will also go round and round as you form the disc.
- When you have it formed into the shape and thickness you want, lift the dough and parchment paper together, placing one hand under to support the dough…and tap all the excess flour off the parchment paper into the sink or the trash can. I find this much easier and quicker than having to scrub sticky flour off the counter. This way my counter stays pretty clean.
- Place the parchment with dough onto your baking sheet.
- Cut the disc into eight triangles, trying not to cut through the parchment paper.
- With a thin metal or plastic triangle pie server or an offset spatula, slide each triangle 1-2 inches away from the center of the disc. This gives each triangle plenty of space to bake evenly. This is why I use a large pizza pan. I just slide each wedge a couple inches away from the center and they have plenty of breathing space.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes, just to make sure the butter chunks inside are solid. If you formed the disc by hand the butter may have warmed up and you'll need to chill it a little.
Bake and cool:
- Bake it at 350F degrees for 20-25 minutes, checking it at the 20-minute mark. It should be a little puffy. In my oven, I actually baked it for 30 minutes since my dough was a little wetter than it should have been. After the 20-minute mark, I set it for another 5 minutes, checked it and set it for another 5 minutes until I felt it was done. The scones should be a nice light brown on the bottom - they came out delicious!
- Let the scones cool on the pan for 15 minutes and then drizzle or spread with a white icing. I like to include a white icing to give a nice contrast to the coffee and chocolate flavors in the scones. If you like a fuller chocolate flavor, go ahead and cover them with a chocolate icing.
- Then sprinkle with more mini chocolate chips and even a few coffee grounds. Or, include some strong brewed coffee in your icing mixture.
Icing Ingredients:
2 1/4 C powdered sugar
2 T whole milk (other milks will suffice)
1 T Butter, melted
1 T Coffee, strong brewed, warmed up (Optional)
1 t Vanilla extract
1 T Cocoa powder (Optional)
- If you want a very white icing, substitute the brewed coffee for one half teaspoon coffee extract. Vanilla extract can also give the icing an off-white color.
- Whisk all the ingredients together. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk and if it’s a little too thin add a little more powdered sugar.
- Drizzle the icing over the scones or frost them so they are entire covered. I like to drizzle the icing so I can still see the color of the scones.
- Quick, while the icing is still wet, sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and a little of the finely ground coffee. They will identify the flavors in the scones, especially if you have an assortment of flavors for selection.
Storage:
- These are as easy to store as they are to make. Just place them in a covered tin or in a plastic container. I don’t refrigerate them because they usually disappear within a few days.
- They can also be stored in the freezer. I usually wrap them individually in plastic wrap and then tuck them in a sealable plastic bag.
Try some other flavor options:
- I love to play around with different flavors. Here’s your opportunity to do the same. Think about the flavor palate you’d like to offer. Do you want a warm fall palate? Or, how about some bright spring flavors? Patriotic look? Maple tree syrup tapping time?
- If you want a spice offering, mix a few warm fall spices like nutmeg, pumpkin spices, cloves, ginger or cinnamon. Incorporate the flavors in the scones as well as the icing. I have even added some pumpkin puree – in that case you may need a little more flour, but not much.
- For a bright set of flavors, add 1 tablespoon lemon zest and 2 tablespoons lemon juice.
- For a Thanksgiving setting, add diced dried cranberries and rough chopped pecans to the dough and sprinkle them on the wet icing. Add a teaspoon or more of pumpkin spices in the dough.
- At Halloween, add a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dough and orange food coloring to the icing. After icing them, sprinkle them with orange and brown M&Ms.
- For a fun colorful palate, mix different dried fruits like cranberries and blueberries or citrus fruits, finely chopped in the dough. Because dried fruits can become sticky when you chop them up, be sure to mix them with a little flour so they don’t stick together when you incorporate them to the dough.
- For an early spring Maple tree syrup tapping event, add Maple extract and chopped pecans in the dough. Add Maple extract to the icing and sprinkle chopped pecans over the icing before it sets.
- For a Christmas Holiday party, add candy cane bits in the dough along with peppermint extract. Then sprinkle candy cane pieces on top of the wet icing.
- For the 4th of July, add red, white and blue mini-M&Ms in the dough and sprinkle them with red, white and blue sprinkles on the wet white icing.
These are delicious and easy to make scones. Make them with or for friends and family to “Bake your own Memories!”
Comments