Chocolate Chip Scones

This will sound ridiculous, but my very favorite food might be chocolate chip scones. They aren't as easy to find as they used to be. Chocolate chip scones were a coffee house staple of the mid-90s in Chicago, but I haven't seen any for sale lately. So I made my own.

This recipe is based on orangette's Scottish scone recipe.

• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 egg
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 oz. unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
• 3 T. sugar
• 6 oz. chocolate chips. Or less. I like them chocolately. I used Enjoy Life Semisweet Chocolate Chips, which are a local brand according to signage at the Whole Foods. Believe it or not, they were the least expensive chips I could find (the 365 chips must have been out), and are vegan and allergen free.

In a bowl, mix together flours, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and work into the flour mixture with your hands, until you have butter lumps no bigger than the size of a pea. (Or do this in the food processor.) Whisk together egg, milk, and vanilla. Add chips to dry mixture. Mix wet mixture into dry until just combined. Knead a few times on a floured board, until cohesive, but handling as little as possible. To form scones, you can mound the dough into a disk and then slice like a pizza into wedges, or cut out like biscuits. I went the latter route using a drinking glass, and got 10 scones. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 12 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on rack.

Of course, scones don't have to contain egg or dairy. It's been years since I made non-vegan scones. One of my favorite vegan scone recipes is made with spelt flour and can be found in Alex Jamieson's The Great American Detox Diet.