One perennial on my annual to-do list is to eat in a healthy fashion. It’s not that my diet is intrinsically unhealthy just that it is forever in need of a little tweaking. Eating in a healthy fashion is a rather nebulous notion so I have honed in on just a few things I would like to do. One is to drink more water, more wheat grass juice and more blueberry smoothies. When I say more I am going to aim for an achievable one litre of water per day, two to three shots of wheatgrass juice per week and the occasional blueberry smoothie. The other change I would like to make is to dissolve my enduring belief that foodstuffs are divided into the good and the bad. In other words so long as I don’t overdo it I am not going to beat myself up for indulging in the occasional not-so-uber-healthy treat.
Hence I had a chocolate scone topped with lashings of cream and a few generous dollops of marmalade for breakfast this morning. I found the recipe for chocolate scones in the Financial Times’s Saturday magazine way back in February last year. It’s a Rose Carrarini recipe: Rose, together with her husband Charles, owns the wonderful Rose Bakery (a great spot for breakfast or lunch) at 46 Rue de Martyrs in Paris. There’s an outpost of the Rose Bakery atop the Dover Street Market on London’s Dover Street and there are also apparently branches in Seoul and Tokyo.
I will be missing from the blog until next weekend, Sunday most likely, so enjoy your week and the chocolate scones if you make them.
INGREDIENTS (for 6 to 8 scones)
130ml light cream or milk
1 medium egg
1/2 teaspon of vanilla
275g flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 flat tablespoon baking powder
25g cocoa powder
70g sugar
75g butter – cut into small pieces
180g chocolate chips (optional)
1 extra egg for glaze.
METHOD
1. Pre-heat your oven to 190°C.
2. Put the egg, vanilla and the milk or cream in a bowl and beat gently with a fork to combine.
3. Put the flour, salt, baking powder, cocoa powder, sugar and cubed butter into the bowl of a food processor and blitz briefly until the mix is the consistency of breadcrumbs. (The recipe suggests working the butter into the flour by hand but it is, of course, quicker in a processor).
4. Empty the breadcrumb like mix into a large bowl and stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Finally add the cream and egg mix and combine into a soft but not sticky dough.
6. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 4 cm approx and use a cutter to cut out six to eight scones.
7. Put the scones on a baking tray lined with wax paper, glaze the tops with beaten egg and bake for 12 – 15 mins.
Always serve warm. Rose says “These special scones are really good served with clotted cream and marmalade, but are also great with a little butter.”
Talk to you next weekend.
Just Add Attitude 
What a great recipe! Love the picture too!
The scones are delicious and thank you for the compliment on the picture.
Lovely shots, B. Yes, I totally agree with you. Drinking more water is the key to a successful diet.
Thank you Francesca . Water is so important I seem to be out of the habit of drinking enough of it each day so I need to re-establish that habit. 😉
Chocolate + scones! Yum. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
As a scone addict and a lover of dark chocolate – I thought this recipe was tailor made for me.