I know my posts thusfar have not reflected it, but I have a MAJOR sweet tooth. I have frequently eaten cookies for lunch, cake for breakfast, and pints of Ben and Jerry’s with my roommate in under 10 minutes. This severely impedes on my goal to eat healthy, obviously. I tend to feel a Catholic-like guilt after I eat a ton of chocolate or something of that kind. So, it always makes me quite happy when I find a recipe for a healthy version of a great dessert. I found this recipe for Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones over at skinnytaste. Skinnytaste has some outstanding healthy recipes that are worth checking out too.
Anyway, these scones. They are nice and sweet without overpowering you and the chocolate bits are just some added sweetness and taste especially gooey when the scones are still hot from the oven. I also love how the buttermilk makes the scones a bit more rich than regular milk would. This is what allows us to only use 3 T. of butter for the whole batch. Really, it’s a win-win situation guys.
I also tried making them with diced strawberries and they turned out pretty well. Not as sugary sweet, but still worth making. Moral of the story here: variations work well with this recipe so experimentation is encouraged. Make it your own! Just make sure you stick with the 3/4 C. or 1 C. measurement for whatever you add. I did a whole cup for the strawberry batch since I knew that berries like that decrease in size and mush up when you bake them. Use your judgement, you passed first grade.
These have honestly become one of my favorite things to make as a snack/dessert because I don’t feel like I am eating anything too terrible yet it still satisfies my desire for something sweet. Even my roommate, one of the pickiest eaters ever, devours these like a starving mammoth. Plus, I buy my buttermilk by the pint because that is the smallest bottle I can buy. This means that I HAVE to make two batches otherwise the buttermilk goes to waste. And I am not about that. So, double scones for me! Like I said, win-win.
This recipe is another one that doesn’t call for any difficult ingredients, aside from the buttermilk and maybe the chocolate chips (depending on how you stock your kitchen). These are not difficult ingredients to get, nor will they go to waste. The rest of the ingredients are ones that, even if you don’t have them at the moment, you will want them on hand for future baking/cooking and won’t expire any time soon.
Confession for you guys though, I kind of cheat when making these. The original recipe tells you to knead the dough on a flat surface. I kind of just knead it in the mixing bowl because I am lazy. Also, you are instructed to cut the dough into triangle pizza-like slices. I felt like that was asking too much from my shifty cutting-things-symmetrically skills and just went with squares. Either way you choose, you’ll still get some delicious goodies!
Anyway, onto the price breakdown:
- 3/4 C. buttermilk: $0.75 (that is roughly half of your pint)
- 1/4 C. sugar: $0.15
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract: $0.20
- 1 egg: $0.15 (if you buy the inorganic generic kind)
- 1 C. all purpose flour: $0.05
- 1 C. whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat): $0.05
- 1 T. baking powder: $0.10 (if that)
- 3 T. butter: $0.05
- 3/4 C. chocolate chips: $1.00
Total: $2.50
Ingredients:
- 3/4 C. cold buttermilk
- 1/4 C. sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 C. all purpose flour
- 1 C. whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat)
- 1 T. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 T. cold butter
- 3/4 C. chocolate chips
- cooking spray
- extra butter to put on top of scones
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray or line it with aluminum foil.
- In a medium bowl, mix together buttermilk, sugar, vanilla extract, and the egg. Stir with a whisk.
Mix it. Mix it good. - In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir with the whisk.
- Cut the butter into small bits and with either a pastry blender or two knives cut the butter into the flour mixture. It should look like a crumbly meal.
What is should look like cutting the butter in. 
- Here is what the butter should look like when it is almost all the way cut in.
- Add the chocolate chips and the milk mixture and stir just until moist. Don’t overwork the dough or it will get rough.
- Knead the dough either on a floured counter or in the bowl (like my lazy butt does) with your floured hands.
- On the greased baking sheet, form the dough into a circle (or rectangle-ish shape). It should be about 3/4 in. thick. Cut the dough into 12 wedges or the 12 squares I do. Make sure that each piece is separated a bit from the rest so everything bakes evenly.
My cuts are a little uneven, but it’s no big deal. - Put a bit of melted butter on top of the scones so they brown all nice and sprinkle with sugar if you want. I generally don’t do the sugar.
- Bake 18-20 minutes.
I almost forgot to take a picture, but by the time I remembered I already had eaten half a scone. My bad. - Eat them when they are nice and toasty.
Hope these turn out as delicious for you all as they did for me.
What other additions did you try? How did they work out?
Catherine's College Kitchen 