Chocolate and cocoa nib scones

The kitchen gods must have been smiling down on me today: I had one of those days in the kitchen where things just seem to work out. When cooking sometimes seems to go spectacularly wrong as often as it goes right, this is a nice surprise.

For the lack of any scientific explanation for this, I’m going to attribute it to the heavenly qualities of cocoa nibs – if this is not the food of the gods, I don’t know what is. On opening the large bag I bought from a health food shop there was the most overpowering smell of chocolate.



But this was not chocolate as you and I know it, with added sugar and dairy products and vegetable oils, but the purest and most completely unadulterated chocolate imaginable. I could actually taste, for the first time ever, that chocolate comes from a real living plant. I realise this sounds completely insane, but I find normal chocolate seems to be so totally unrelated to any kind of fruit or living thing that it’s hard to believe.

Cocoa nibs lift these scones from something fairly ordinary to something truly spectacular that could possibly steal the show from any other cakes or pastries that may follow in an afternoon tea. They are barely sweet, with just a hint of sugar and a modest amount of chocolate chips, allowing the cocoa nibs to be front and centre. The flavours balance perfectly with a little raspberry jam and a fat blob of whipped cream.

The only problem now is that no fruit scone, not even the best of it’s kind, could ever come close to rivalling these scones for me.



Things I have learnt from making these scones:

I start by cutting in the butter with a knife as for rough puff pastry and then only begin rubbing it in by hand once it is cut up quite small. It doesn’t need to be completely evenly rubbed in to fine breadcrumb stage, as I find this makes them too dense.

The best way to avoid overworking the dough is to get the buttermilk mixed in quickly – you don’t need to be delicate with it, just work quickly and confidently until it forms a dough.

Scones should be served the day they are made, but if you don’t need the whole batch you can keep the uncooked scones in the freezer, then they can be cooked from frozen with domestic goddess like efficiency when the need for an impromptu afternoon tea arises!



Chocolate and cocoa nib scones: makes 8-10
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s biscuit recipe, and yes I do know that american biscuits are not technically the same things as scones, but…potato, potato)

250g self raising flour
20g sugar
30g cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt
125g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
80g chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips)
30g cocoa nibs
175ml buttermilk

• Preheat the oven to 190°C
• Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb, cream of tartar and salt into a bowl
• Rub the chilled butter into the dry ingredients until just a few lumps remain (see notes above)
• Stir in the chopped chocolate and cocoa nibs
• Add the buttermilk and mix with your hands until it just begins to form a dough
• Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to no less than 1 inch (2.5cm) thick
• Cut out the scones with a 6cm round cutter
• Place on a parchment lined baking tray and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes
• Once cooked, remove to a wire rack and allow to cool before serving
• These are best the day they are made and should be served with raspberry jam and lightly whipped double cream