My all time favorite breakfast treat (and the one I have the least) is definitely scones. I love them fresh out of the oven, with a little schmear of jam, and some clotted cream if I'm feeling really indulgent, and a cup of tea. I think my heart is in London ;).
As part of the baking series I am going to do, as mentioned in my previous post, I took a
roasted banana bread scone from the blog Soup Addict, and edited it slightly to make it more nutritious.
I didn't do much tweaking, because the recipe was already low in butter and sugar. I did exchange all of the all purpose flour for whole wheat flour.
Original recipe:
3 ripe (yellow) bananas
2 – 4 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup yogurt (regular or Greek)
2 1/2 cups flour...i used whole wheat
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
Preheat oven to 350°F. Place the unpeeled bananas on a lined, rimmed baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. The banana skins will be very dark brown/black. Remove from oven and cool.
While the bananas cool, whisk together the flour, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using your fingers, a fork, or a pastry cutter until the butter pieces are no larger than a pea.
Peel and mash the bananas. You should have about one cup — mix in milk, if necessary, to bring the measure up to one cup. Stir in the yogurt.
Add the banana mixture to the flour and stir until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts, if using. This makes a lovely, shaggy wet dough.
Line a dinner plate with wax paper and turn out the dough on top. Pat into a 1″ thick disk. Top with another piece of wax paper and freeze for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 400°F.
Remove top sheet of wax paper and invert the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Remove the other sheet of wax paper and slice the dough into 6 or 8 wedges, pulling the pieces apart slightly. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.
The most interesting part of this recipe was the baking of the bananas. The skins turned very brown, but the inside stayed a pale white, and became very watery.
I did take a bite of the roasted banana, and while I expected it to be even more sweet, it was actually the opposite! I suppose most of the natural sugars leaked out with all the juices.
As compared with other scone recipes I've made, this dough was pretty dry. But it was easy to form into disc.
These smelled delicious while baking, and I couldn't wait to dip into one. When I broke one apart, I wasn't really surprised to see that it wasn't as fluffy or as cake-y as traditional scones. It was more layered like a biscuit, and very heavy and dense. The whole wheat flour definitely has a lot to do with that, but so does the lack of wet ingredients. The next time around, I'll use white flour or maybe half of each kind, and I'll be able to see how that affects the texture.
The scones were nutty with only a hint of banana. They were still tasty reheated with some blackberry jam, and probably would have been good with some peanut butter too. The yellow specks in the scone are actually little pieces of banana, and during the cooking process, became very vibrant.
Happy baking!
