01 Feb Pecan and Dried Cranberry Oat Scones

I don’t know how you like your scones but I want mine to be buttery, soft, perfectly crumbly, rustic, a little sweet, hearty, wholesome, satisfying, healthy enough to eat for breakfast, crunchy on the top and as far from dry as you can come. Does this sound like the perfect scone to you? Then I can assure you that you’ve come to the right place today.

I’ve been playing around with this recipe for pecan and dried cranberry oat scones for a while now and it’s loosely based on my raspberry oatmeal scone recipe. However, I’ve made some changes and I’ve also substituted the raspberries for pecans and dried cranberries simply because it’s one of the best food combos in the world.

It took me three times to get this recipe right. The first time I used my recipe for raspberry oatmeal scones and just substituted the raspberries for pecans and dried cranberries. The scones weren’t sweet enough, tasted too much baking powder and were a little bit too dry and crumbly. All of these things happened because I just replaced the raspberries without making up for the lack of moisture, sweetness and acidity that comes from all the raspberries.

I made a couple of changes for trial number two and the result was better but they still didn’t rise enough in the oven so when I made the third batch I added 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar. And what a difference it made! A lot of people make scones with buttermilk, unfortunately we don’t have buttermilk in Sweden so I like to use whole milk(or sometimes sour milk) instead, however it doesn’t contain as much lactic acid as buttermilk.

A very short chemistry lesson: When baking powder reacts with the acid in a batter or a dough an acid-base reaction occurs and carbon dioxide is released which creates air bubbles and makes baked goods rise. By adding some more acid in the form of apple cider vinegar the scones could rise better. If you like to bake with dairy free milk try adding a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar next time and you’ll see what a difference it makes.

 

 

I hope I’m not boring you with all this talk about lactic acid and reactions and stuff… Anyway, they’re very easy to make and I know that all of you who thinks gluten free baking is difficult because of all the different flours will love this recipe. It’s only made with oat flour and I haven’t used any starches whatsoever which makes them pretty healthy. They’re naturally sweetened with honey and sprinkled with sugar on the top to make them a little bit crunchy. They’re flavored with cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla extract. I don’t think I have to convince you any further. Lets just say that pecans, dried cranberries, cinnamon, cardamom, oat flour and honey makes these my favorite scones in the world atm.

 Baker’s notes:

• The dough is very sticky so you’ll need quite a lot of flour when shaping the scones. Even though it might seem too sticky don’t add more flour to the dough because then the scones will be too dry.
• If you want to you can toast the pecans in the oven before adding them to the dough. Just make sure that they cool completely before introduced to the dough.