sweetgreenkitchen

Oatmeal Blackberry Almond Scones

Author: Sweet Green Kitchen’s Jen Jones

Endorsed by my four year old, who took one bite and pronounced (unsolicited, I might add) “mmm, these are really tasty”, what more could you ask for.  I make a lot of different scones and these are my latest variation.  These are by no means traditional Irish scones, but my very Americanized version with whole grains and less fat, I would agree with the four year old they are “really tasty”, but also a little bit healthy to boot.  A nice breakfast treat, perhaps with a little yogurt or a lovely afternoon “teatime” or after school snack.  I use frozen blackberries here which stay intact a little bit more than fresh berries would, plus using frozen berries makes it a great year round recipe when perfect summer berries are not available.

Heart shapes seemed to be in order since the blackberries “bleed” quite a bit into the dough, coloring it a nice pinkish red. I resisted the urge to title this recipe “Bleeding Hearts”, but maybe for Halloween…Otherwise you can share the love all year long with these tasty little scones.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Unbleached White Flour

½ Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1 Cup Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (not instant)

¼ Cup Almond Flour (see note below)

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

¼ teaspoon Fine Sea Salt

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

¼ teaspoon Ground Ginger

Zest of 1 Lemon

¼ Cup Sugar (I use a minimally processed and Organic sugar)

2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil (Solid) OR cold Butter OR Vegan Butter

¼ Cup Slivered Almonds

1 Cup Partially Defrosted Frozen Blackberries

½ Cup Buttermilk (I use lowfat)

1 Extra Large Egg

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 teaspoon Almond Extract

About 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Directions:

Measure out 1 cup Frozen Blackberries and set aside in a small bowl.  Leave at room temperature while preparing other ingredients.

Preheat Oven to 400 F

In a medium – large bowl combine all the dry ingredients (Flour through Sugars) with a whisk.

Next, measure out the Coconut Oil or Butter and cut into small pieces.  Add to the flour mixture and incorporate through using a pastry cutter or I find a potato masher works great too or even the back of a fork, leaving small pieces throughout, about the size of peas. 

Next, stir in Almond slivers.  Then add in the partially defrosted Blackberries, do not mix in.

In a separate bowl or directly in the liquid measuring cup, mix together Buttermilk, Egg, Lemon Juice and Vanilla and Almond Extracts. 

Add the liquids to the flour mixture.  Stir to combine.  At this point, the Blackberries will mash up a bit and color the batter a pinkish hue, try not to completely annihilate them, you want to still be left with some pieces and even a few whole berries is nice. 

Place the batter in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes to chill a bit so it will be easier to form into shapes.  

I cut my scones into heart shapes, using a 2 ½ inch heart shaped cookie cutter.  I get about 13-14 scones.  If you plan to cut the scones into shapes as I do, sprinkle a little bit of flour onto a pastry mat.  Pour the batter out onto the mat, it will be very wet.  Spread the batter out using the back of a spoon, spatula or your hands, to about 1 inch thick.  Carefully cut shapes out of the batter and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.  I find it easiest to cut out the dough and then move the cutter over to the baking sheet and gently press the batter out of the cutter directly onto the parchment.  Continue and reshape the dough to cut more shapes. 

Alternatively, you can make “drop” scones, by scooping out some batter with an ice cream scoop or large soup spoon and drop it onto the parchment.

Depending upon the size of your cutter or drop scones you should end up with about 12-16 scones. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 12-16 minutes.  Remove from the oven, cool on the pan for about a minute and then transfer to a wire cooling rack. Any leftover cooled scones can be stored in an airtight container for a few days or frozen in a zip top bag.  Enjoy!

Ingredient Note: If you don’t have almond flour on hand, you can make your own by grinding whole or sliced almonds in a spice grinder or food processor.  They should be finely ground when done, just be sure not to process so long that the almonds turn into paste, which would be Almond Butter, also quite tasty.