Dark Chocolate and Cherry Scones

If you follow me on Instagram (chopsticksandmeasuringcups) then you know that I do plenty of cooking and baking, so it's the following up and posting recipes (or perhaps keeping track of ingredients and measurements) that's not my forte these days. I have a solution, though! I think you all should probably just feel free to stop by my apartment and try all of the food that's coming out of my kitchen first hand. Seriously, though, someone needs to hold me better accountable to writing up recipes! Who knows what will happen once year 2 of grad school starts up..

Anyway, I do have quite the recipe for you today. Scones have been floating around my Google reader and given that I'm going down my aunt's in the Cape where we always have a buffet of breakfast pastries, it just seemed like the right time to make some scones of my own! These are adapted from a Weight Watchers' friendly blog, which is particularly convenient given I'm going to stuff my face with them right before heading out onto the beach. I changed around the flavors to satisfy a craving I've had for Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, but definitely still try out the original recipe which is more oatmeal raisin themed!

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Scones
Recipe adapted from Eat Yourself Skinny's Cinnamon Raisin Scones

Yields 12 moderately sized scones, or 8 "restaurant" sized scones

Scone Ingredients

• 2 cups white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons cold butter (I'm talking straight from the fridge, has no give, type of cold butter!) 
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup rehydrated dried cherries (Fresh would be wonderful, but I didn't have any on hand!)
• This can be done by letting dried cherries soak in 1/4 cup hot water for 5 minutes or by microwaving them in a bowl with 1/4 cup water for 1 minute. Either way, drain the excess liquid! 
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Glaze Ingredients

• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, coconut oil, or shortening (optional, but highly recommended to get a nice shiny glaze)
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a food processor, pulse together until just incorporated the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon). 
2. Cut the butter into 4 or 5 smaller wedges and pulse into dry mixture. 
3. One at a time, pulse milk, vanilla extract, and eggs into the mixture. Each addition of a wet ingredient, you should only need to pulse once or twice. At the end, the mixture should have begun to clump together and form a dough. 
4. Pulse in cherries and half of the chocolate until batter is flecked with little pieces.
5. Fold in remaining chocolate.
6. On a well floured flat surface and with hands coated in flour, remove dough from food processor and form a disc 9 inches across. (The disc will be between half an inch and an inch thick, but don't worry! It will bake up in the oven.) Transfer disc onto a buttered and floured cookie sheet or other flat baking sheet for actual baking.
7. With a liberally buttered (or non-stick sprayed) pizza cutter, divide the disc into desired proportions. I would recommend either 8 or 12 divisions. 
8. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown all around. Remove and let cool completely.
9. While scones are cooling, in a small sauce pan heat chocolate chips with the oil of your choice. Alternatively, you can melt the two in the microwave for a minute. Just check the microwave every 20 seconds or so or the chocolate could burn. 
10. Once melted, stir in the cayenne pepper and cinnamon.
11. When the scones are completely cooled, drizzle sauce over top the scones, serve and enjoy!

These scones come in at 6 WW+ points. They make a great midday treat with a coffee pick me up or even could be served alongside some scrambled egg whites for quite the respectable breakfast! Of course, feel free to play around with the recipe- you might be interested in trying include subbing in a mixture of half oat flour (made simply by pulsing quick or old fashioned oats in the food processor) with half all purpose white flour. You could also use fresh cherries if they're local and in season where you are. Any way you have it, please do enjoy!