Tender Chocolate Chip Scones + Video
Wow, it's been a while. I haven't posted a scone recipe on this blog in yeeearrrrssss. Well, okay, a year. The last time I posted a scone recipe was over a year ago. This is actually only the second scone recipe on the blog ever.
The first scone recipe I posted was my favorite plain scone recipe. With a video.
This time, we're getting an upgrade. Because these scones have chocolate chips in them. YAY!
And, don't you fret, there's a video tutorial this time around too. Here you go:
Or, watch it on Youtube.
So....... scones. They sound scary, but they're really not. They're so harmless. And simple to make. The video above should be enough to have convinced you that I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
But these particular chocolate chip scones are some of the simplest scones you'll ever come across. Because they don't have ANY butter in them.
Now, if you know scones, you know scones and butter go hand in hand. Butter is usually the principal ingredient in a scone. Butter is to a scone what chocolate chips are to a chocolate chip cookie. And while that's not a good example in technical, baking-science-chemistry terms, it's a good example in emotional terms. Because you know how important I feel chocolate chips (chocolate chunks, really) are. So that should help you understand how important butter is in a scone.
To make scones, the dry ingredients are mixed together, the butter is crumbled in, and then the wet ingredients are added. Just like a pie dough.
The butter is what gives the scone it's signature flakiness and visible layers.
But these tender chocolate chip scones have no butter. So what do they have instead? Heavy cream.
Heavy cream is butter, in its liquid state. If you take heavy cream and whip it in your machine for a couple minutes, you get butter.
So I guess these scones do have butter. But not really. Because they have heavy cream.
Heavy cream replaces all the butter, as well as all the wet ingredients in this scone recipe. Unless you count vanilla extract as a wet ingredient. In that case I lied. But moving on.
With the heavy cream substitution you get two awesome outcomes.
First, the resulting texture of your scones is incredibly tender. These chocolate chip scones are not your average flaky, crispy, crunchy scones. Nope. These scones are a lot more soft and crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth. They're the perfect mixture of a cake and a cookie.
So now we've clarified why I titled these "tender chocolate chip scones." Because that's the principal element of these scones - their tenderness. Because of the lack of butter. And addition of heavy cream.
The second heavy cream substitution perk is that these scones are so much more fool-proof than a scone recipe that contains butter is.
Usually, you have to make sure your butter is super cold and that you don't let the heat of your hands hinder that coldness while you're mixing the scones. You also have to be very careful not to over mix the butter into the dry ingredients, as this will result in tough scones rather than flaky, delicate ones.
But since these chocolate chip scones have no butter, we have no problems. That come along with the butter.
All you have to do for these scones is mix your heavy cream into the dry ingredients until they're just moistened. And then you knead the dough for like half a minute until everything is combined. And then you shape the scones and bake 'em.
And you're done. And you have the most tender, delicate, soft, light scones ever.
And if you're thinking, "Am I seeing right?? Did she use chocolate chips instead of chocolate chunks in these scones?!" don't worry - you're not going insane. You are seeing right. I did use chocolate chips instead of chocolate chunks.
I can't tell you why (or how, or when, or where, or who), but for some extremely odd reason, I think chocolate chips work just as well here as chocolate chunks would.
Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say.
tender chocolate chip scones
Yield: 16 scones
3 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips
2 cups cold heavy (whipping) cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 egg, for brushing
- Raw sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. Mix in the chocolate chips.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the chilled heavy cream and vanilla extract. Stir everything together until ingredients are just moistened (you don't want to over mix these).
Dump dough out onto floured work surface. Knead for a minute until everything is just incorporated, then divide dough into two equal portions. Flatten each portion into an 8-inch disk, then slice each disk into 8 triangles.
Space triangles evenly onto prepared baking sheets. Brush the tops lightly with the beaten egg, then sprinkle each top with raw sugar.
Bake scones for 20 minutes, or until tops and bottoms are golden.
Adapted from Hershey's
