Maple Drizzled Gingerbread Scones

maple gingerbread scones with maple drizzle

Happy 2015 to you all, and to start off the New Year, here’s another taste of the holiday season with these maple gingerbread scones. 

I love making gingerbread cookies this time of year, something I was introduced to when I spent my first Christmas Eve with Colin’s family way back when we met in college.  A few years later, my mother in-law “faxed” (that gives you an idea of how very long ago this was…) me a recipe she found for a very traditional Scandanavian gingerbread complete with cardamom and then she gifted me my first jar of the very same spice, a rare and expensive find at the time.  I’ve seen so many recipes for various gingerbread cookies, cakes, etc that do not include cardamom, but to me gingerbread just isn’t the same without.  It is an intense spice, a very small amount is all you need and if it’s not to your taste or you have trouble finding it, you could certainly skip it.  If you like Indian food, cardamom pods are those strange looking green things found in many restaurant’s “fragrant basmati rice”.

When I saw Pinch of Yum’s recipe for maple glazed gingerbread scones, I knew I just had to try them, since I both love gingerbread and scones!  Of course I changed up the recipe a bit, adding oats as I seem to do with almost every baked good and of course adding in cardamom as I do with my gingerbread cookies (you’ll have to wait until next Christmas for that recipe!).  I also cut back a bit on the butter and sugar and swapped out the milk for buttermilk.  What you end up with is a dense, cakey textured scone (which is just perfect to me) with a good hit of spice.  The scones themselves are just lightly sweet, so the maple drizzle adds a nice extra bit of moist sweetness without making them cloyingly so.

These maple gingerbread scones make a nice breakfast treat with a little side of yogurt if you like.  Also perfect for an afternoon snack.  I like to make mine with a heart shaped cookie cutter, but you could use a square or round cutter if you prefer or even just cut them by hand into squares or triangles. 

Maple Drizzled Gingerbread Scones

Author: Sweet Green Kitchen’s Jen Jones

Adapted from “Pinch of Yum” Maple Glazed Gingerbread Scones

Makes about 11-12 scones

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup all purpose unbleached flour

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 Tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¾ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)

4 Tablespoons frozen unsalted butter – grated

1 extra large egg

¼ cup real maple syrup

¼ cup molasses

½ cup buttermilk (I use lowfat)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Whisk together the dry ingredients from flour through spices.

Next grate the butter right into the flour mix and work through with the back of a fork.

In a small bowl or right in your liquid measuring cup, whisk together the egg, maple syrup, molasses, buttermilk and vanilla.  Pour into the dry ingredients, using a rubber spatula to get it all out and mix through.  Expect a pretty sticky dough.

At this point, chill the dough in the fridge for at least 15-20 minutes, this will make it easier to roll out and cut into shapes. After chilling, turn out the dough onto a parchment lined baking pan and shape it together.  Using a floured rolling pan or just your hands, roll out the dough until it’s about 1/2 – ¾ inch thick.  Cut shapes out with a cookie cutter, I use a 2 ½ inch heart shaped cutter, but any roundish or squarish shape would work.  Alternatively, shape the whole mess into a round or squarish shape about 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 inches across and cut into 10-12 even triangles or squares and separate.

Bake at 400 F for about 13-15 minutes.  Cool slightly.  Top each with maple drizzle just before serving.  Enjoy!

Maple Drizzle

3 Tablespoons melted butter

3 ounces room temperature cream cheese

3 Tablespoons real maple syrup

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk together the melted butter, cream cheese and vanilla first, until completely smooth and then add in the maple syrup, stirring to combine.  Drizzle over the top of baked scones and serve.  Enjoy!

maple drizzle

Note: only add maple drizzle to scones that will be eaten right away.  Store unglazed scones in an airtight container at room temp and store any remaining maple drizzle covered in the fridge.

Recipe Notes: this scone dough is pretty sticky, if you don’t wish to torture yourself with cute cookie cutter shapes as I do, make your life simpler by just cutting into simple triangles or squares. 

Molasses can be a a pretty intense flavor that not everyone loves, if that’s you, try adjusting the ratio of sweets with more maple syrup to less molasses.  I’ll probably try this next time, but truthfully that likely won’t be until next December. I would try 6 Tablespoons maple syrup plus 2 Tablespoons molasses.  If you try the adjustment, please let me know your results in the comments section 🙂 

Tagged: gingerbread, maple syrup, molasses, Oats, Scones