blueberry scones
Personally, I love scones. They’re light & airy, they call for relatively few ingredients, & they’re wonderful if you’re having guests. Scones never fail to delight.
Scones are also the sort of delight that you may have thought were beyond your grasp on a gluten free diet. Such folly! You can have scones, you should have scones. You must have scones! It’s the right thing to do. After all, aren’t you a beacon for the rest of the gluten free community? Aren’t you that shining star of inexpensive gluten free possibility? Go on! Make a scone!
Any Berry Scones
Ingredients
2 cups Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Flour
1 level tsp. xanthan gum
1 tBsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tBsp. sugar (yup – that’s all)
5 tBsp. unsalted butter, diced (and COLD)*
1 cup cream (milk will do, provided it’s not fat free (shudder))
1 cup berries (I used frozen blueberries from Trader Joe’s – cheap-o)
1. Combine flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt & sugar in a large bowl. Transfer a few tablespoons of this dry ingredient mixture to a small bowl & add the berries you plan to use. Toss to coat and set aside.
2. To the large bowl with the dry ingredients, add the diced butter. Cut it in. You can either use a pastry cutter or two knives & pretend like you’re cutting steak with them over & over. The mixture should look coarse when you’re done.
3. Add in the cream or milk and stir to combine. The dough will come together. Handling it as little as possible, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a rectangle about 1/2″ thick.
4. Cut the dough into triangles. Transfer the triangles to baking sheets lined with parchment paper, a couple inches apart. Brush with a bit of milk and sprinkle with a tiny bit of granulated sugar, if you like.
5. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until the scones are puffed up and slightly brown around the edges. Serve right away.
6. Fed Ex me one, would you? I’m starved. No one makes me anything around here!
*The trick here is to keep the butter cold. I usually dice the butter and then stick it in the freezer for a few minutes to ensure it’s good and cold. The concept is similar to pastry dough, where you want to butter to evenly distribute among the dry ingredients, and then melt in the oven and puff out the surrounding flour. It makes for light scones, which is the only sort of scones to have.
Warmly,
Nicole
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{ 19 comments }
why do I find myself here… yet again… looking at these gorgeous pictures and starving!!!! Got a recipe for muffins made with almond flour? I saw one somewhere and I cannot find that thing again… isn’t that always the way? I’m making the rice pudding right now!!
Hi, Happy,
I know. I feel the same way when I’m posting. It’s torture. Eating is better than posting.
I’m not familiar with almond flour — I’m too cheap to buy it — so I don’t have a recipe for almond flour muffins, but one recipe in particular kept coming up on the Internet when I searched. I hope it’s helpful: http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/lowcarb-recipe-help-suggestions/168251-mini-almond-flour-muffins.html
Warmly,
Nicole
Another big hit!! My non-celiac, non-scone loving husband thought these were great (especially with ice cream). The girls at work used to dread me bringing in gf baked goods for them to try but everything from you has been welcomed with open arms!
Hi, Denise,
Thank you so much for the kind words. You have made my day! Being gluten free not only doesn’t have to cost a bundle, it doesn’t have to mean life is not delicious. You’re helping to give GF a good name!
Warmly,
Nicole
These are wonderful! I do have to admit to making them with chocolate chips instead of berries as my silly 4yo changed her mind mid-recipe. She loved them as did my non-silly 14yo son and one of his friends. In fact, the two boys gobbled almost all of them in one afternoon!
Hi, Lesley,
Scones should disappear quickly! I’m sure they were great with chocolate chips. Thanks for posting.
Warmly,
Nicole
Awesome awesome awesome! LOVED it…turned out great! I have made this a few times now an double the recipe every time so I can freeze the extra and ‘defrost’ one by one as needed in my GF toaster oven! My hubby also loves these and can’t tell they are gf!
Scones are wonderful, freeze well!
Elana’s Pantry is an excellent site, all recipes use almond or coconut flour!
Hi just found your site and am excited to try your recipes, but a quick question on the scones, My kids are milk allergy along with GF can you substitute the butter with anything else. These look so good. Thanks
Hi, Patricia,
Welcome to the site. Yes, you can substitute for butter with a soy butter, for example. We used to be dairy free, and I used to use Earth Balance brand soy butter. It even comes in sticks.
I hope that’s helpful.
Warmly,
Nicole
Help. My scones were a gooey mess after mixing in the berries. What did I do wrong?
Hi, Jennifer,
I would have to guess that it was either one issue or another (or both): you added too much liquid, and/or your butter was not cold enough. Most likely, it was a combination of the two. Don’t be afraid to tinker a little. The dough will be sticky, but not gooey. I hope that’s helpful!
Warmly,
Nicole
I love all of your tasty gf recipes! These scones rocked my tastebuds too!
MMMMM,…Many greets from a recent gf foodie from Brussels, Belgium! :)
Hi, Sophie,
Thank you so much for writing all the way from Brussels! How great is the Internet?
Thank you for posting, and enjoy!
Warmly,
Nicole
Hi, just curious, at what point do you add the blueberries, also should they be thawed and drained or added frozen? I was afraid adding them frozen could increase the liquid in the recipe. Thanks, DJ
Hi, Delia,
You add them frozen. It’s best not to defrost frozen berries when using them in pastry, since the pastry itself will go from very cold to a very hot oven. It won’t alter the moisture content. Not to worry. I hope that helps!
Warm regards,
Nicole
I just bought your book and couldn’t wait to get started. I’m gluten sensitive and have tried many times to make GF scones, cookies, etc. with terrible results. Nice to know I’m not alone! Thanks for writing your book and blog, and for being the funny, wonderful, down to earth, GF fab cook that you are….I’m SO glad I found you.
Now, about those scones…. please tell me WHEN DO I add the berries? Nowhere in the recipe does it tell me that. I made my first batch yesterday, but I had to put the dough back into the bowl after shaping it into a rectangle so I could add the berries. Needless to say after handling it so much and mixing it so much they didn’t turn out so good – spongy (although still tasty). So… WHEN do I add those gorgeous berries to the recipe?
JoAnn
Hi, JoAnn,
Thank you so much for the kind words. I’m so glad you seem to have renewed sense of possibility!
I am so sorry about the berries problem. You are running into an editing error that will be corrected in the next printing (but that doesn’t help you much, now does it — I know…). You can add the berries either right before the milk, or right after. If you add the berries after the milk, just try not to handle the dough too much as you incorporate the berries into it. Please accept my sincere apology for the omission in the book.
I hope you’ll keep coming back to the blog. Later this week, a recipe for GF Monkey Bread that is downright sinful – but super easy.
xoxo
Nicole
Nicole,
Hi!!! Just wanted to let you know that I stepped out from behind the wall of fear of failure and tried these this morning for breakfast! Oh My Goodness!!! Yummmmmm!!! (So yumm I ate 4 yikes!!!) I was worried when the batter looked wayyyy to wet, but I kept stirring and *surprise* the batter came together just like you said it would! Yea!! They are sooo yummy!!! I did chocolate chips and cranberries… Yea!!!
Thanks!!