avocado8

Scones!

I made the most awesome scones this morning! It was my fourth try fiddling with this recipe, adapted from The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley, and while all four batches were good, this one was the best. I ate TWO scones this morning. They're very grainy, which I like (ever since I cut waaaaay back on sugar, I have a hard time eating any carbs that *aren't* whole-grainy), and not too sweet. If you like your scones sweeter, you can sprinkle some sugar on top. If you like them less sweet, leave out the fruit, or use unsweetened dried tart cherries instead.

Multi-grain Scones #4

1 egg
4 T. grapeseed oil
1/4 t. almond extract

1 1/2 c. unbleached white flour
1/4 c. wheat bran
1/2 c. rolled oats (not instant)
3 T. flaxseed meal
2 T. millet
2 T. steel cut (Irish) oats
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
2 or 3 dashes of cinnamon
1/2 c. sliced, dry-toasted almonds
1/2 c. chopped dried apricots

1/2 c. milk

Heat oven to 375°. In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs and oil together until pale. In another bowl, mix the next 12 ingredients (flour through apricots) together with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture a little at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the mixture becomes hard to stir, abandon the spoon and attack it with your hands until you've got a bowl full of well-mixed crumbly bits. Add the milk and stir again with the spoon until thoroughly distributed.

Lightly grease two cookie sheets (or one large sheet pan). Drop the dough by spoonfuls onto the sheets until you have between 8 and 10 mounds. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until scones are lightly browned and dough is dry. Allow to cool 10 minutes, and then SNARF!

The original recipe called for poppy seeds where I used steel cut oats and 5 T. of grapeseed oil where I used 4 T. + 3 T. of flaxseed meal, and it had no nuts or fruit. It also had 1/2 t. of salt and 1/2 t. cinnamon, I think. Oh, and the sugar is technically supposed to go in with the oil and the egg. I accidentally put it in with the dry ingredients in batch #2, however, and I really liked the way that batch came out, so I tried it again. There's something magic in doing that (perhaps because it makes mixing with your hands necessary, and the hands are the magic bit?), so I'll be doing it again next time, too. In none of the 4 tries did I follow the recipe exactly as written, so it's pretty flexible. Enjoy!

Update, Oct. 2: I remembered after I put a second batch using this recipe into the oven last night that I'd put 1/4 t. almond extract in last time. Al says he prefers the scones without the extract (and also with cherries instead of apricots—I made half of each this time), but I prefer them with. Your choice.