Language barrier

Alright, I grew up in New Zealand. I pronounce things funny. One of these things is the word "scones." I know, I know, you might say "But, Kate, dear, it rhymes with 'cones' and 'bones,' so pronounce it that way." It makes perfect sense, but I've said it like "scohns" my whole life and I kinda can't change that now at 23. Well, I could, but meh. I've grown up eating and loving my "scohns" forever. We have them with butter or cream and some fruit, and always with a cup of tea. You're gonna laugh, but we had these during "afternoon tea." This is a time of day I think should be well ingrained into society's daily timetable. It's in between lunch and dinner and much nicer to say than "snack."

Anyway, verbiage aside, here I have a recipe for some delicious, soft scones, much like the ones I had back in Auckland. The scones I find here at your corner coffee shops and bakeries are stone hard. I need to dunk 'em in scalding hot coffee for a good 5 minutes before they're even chewable. But these heavenly pillows of chocolate and spice are amazingly soft. Thank you, Debbie (aka mom 'cause I can never call you Debbie to your face), Spencer's mom, for passing along his recipe--without his knowledge.

The key to making them soft (and not rock hard like your abs) is to not overmix. Combine the ingredients in your mixing bowl just until it forms a dough-like consistency. Don't worry if there's still a lump of flour sitting at the bottom. I didn't have enough chocolate chunks for this recipe so I sprinkled about a 1/4 cup of brown sugar to sweeten up the dough a bit. I also used dark chocolate for this. I also do not have a cookie cutter or a rolling pin (I KNOW, UGH!) so once the dough was formed and kneaded I just pinched off golf-ball-sized hunks of dough and rolled 'em as nicely as I could and placed them on the cookie sheet.

I'm not sure why these scones don't need a greased sheet. They came right off when I picked them up off of the cookie sheet. Sometimes, the most wonderful things in life don't have answers. Save your parchment paper--it's unnecessary. When my mom used to make scones in New Zealand she didn't use a mixer. If you wanna go old school, you can definitely just mix this entire thing using a wooden spoon. Use your hands to break up the butter and incorporate it with the flour mixture, then stir in the milk and the add-ins (chocolate, brown sugar, etc) using a wooden spoon. It works. It has worked for years when we used to make it. You also reduce your risk of overmixing with this method.

Scones are another one of those pastries that are kind of a blank canvas. You can go nuts with the mix-ins and spices. It's pretty receptive to your modifications. I subbed in vanilla almond milk instead of whole milk and it still turned out fine. Have fun with this recipe! My batch gave me about 15 palm-sized scones (I have small palms?) and they're still under 200 calories per scone (192, to be exact) even with my substitutions. If you use unsweetened almond milk and eliminate the brown sugar, you can get away with about 150 calories a pop! Now that is something universal in any language, any culture, and in every person. Who doesn't want a soft, delicious, and chocolatey scone that's low in calories?

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Soft Cinnamon Chocolate Scones

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yields: 15 scones

Ingredients:
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/4 cups milk (you can use almond milk)
1 cup dark chocolate, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup light brown sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix flour, salt, granulated sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon in a mixer fitted with a paddle at low speed. With mixer running, add butter and mix until coarse and sandy. You should still see small lumps of butter. Add milk and mix until almost combined, then add the chocolate and mix to distribute them evenly in dough. Do not overmix, there may still be some flour not mixed in. That’s fine. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough ten times to bring it together and smooth it out.Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough 1 inch thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out circles about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. You can also pinch off golf-ball-sized pieces of dough and roll them into a neat ball, then flatten to an inch thick. Transfer to an ungreased sheet pan (trust me, you don't need to, not even parchment paper). Bake until light golden brown, about 15 minutes.Serve with butter or cream if you must, but they're perfectly delicious on their own.

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xo,
k.