Chocolate Scones for International Scone Week

Back in January, I made my first foray into the world of chocolate and scones with these very tasty chocolate chip scones. Subsequently this lovely recipe, originally for Black Forest Scones, was sent to me by Jane Maile. Jane used to run a tearoom in the Cotswolds and these were one of the treats she regularly baked for her customers. In her own words:

So far these are probably my most unusual scones and cause some surprise which soon turns to ecstasy when they are tasted. Preferably warm from the oven they must be eaten with black cherry jam and lashings of clotted cream – a chocoholic’s delight!

Well it took me a while, but I did eventually get around to making them and coincidentally just in time for Celia's International Scone Week.

I didn't exactly follow the recipe and used watered down yogurt rather than milk and lemon juice. But the saddest omission was failing to use cherry jam to top the scones, I didn't have any to hand, so Black Forest would have been a misnomer.

This is how I made them:

• Put 8oz flour (half spelt, half white), 1.5 oz cocoa powder, 1.5 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt into a large bowl.
• Added 2oz unsalted butter and cut this into pieces with a knife.
• Rubbed the butter into the flour until the mixture resembled breadcrumbs.
• Stirred in 3oz vanilla (granulated) sugar.
• Broke a duck egg into a measuring jug and topped up to 1/4 pt with a mixture of half yogurt / half water.
• Stirred into the dry ingredients then brought the mixture together with my hands.
• Rolled out on a floured surface to 3/4" thick and cut into eight 2" rounds.
• Placed onto a lined baking tin, brushed the tops with milk and baked for 20 minutes at 190C.

Jane warned that if these scones were too sticky, they would not rise and that extra flour may need to be added. Did I heed her? No. My scones did not rise as much as I'd hoped and they were a little moister than they should have been, but who likes dry scones anyway? And, more importantly, they tasted delicious, especially topped with lashings of clotted cream. I shall have to make these again when I have some cherry jam as I really don't care to miss out on the ecstatic experience Jane describes. I will of course apply the jam first -tis the true Cornish way.