Cream Scones with Maple and Vanilla

These cream scones are astonishingly light on the inside and crispy on the outside. They come together in minutes without having to cut butter into them since the cream replaces the addition of butter and milk which makes them incredibly fast to prepare. A marvelous addition to your breakfast or brunch and also wonderful as a snack, you will find yourself whipping them up time after time. Just a note. You really must use cream or you defeat the substitution of one fat for another (cream vs. butter). As it happens, I cheated a bit and used a 15% cream (as opposed to about 32%) although I’ve used full fat cream and I still got away with it and it was successful. Just no lesser fat percentage, promise! Mind you, you should understand these are not like a biscuit and don’t rise very high, just a small dome. You can get them to rise a bit higher if you have the patience to chill them for about half an hour but it’s not a huge difference when all is said and done, up to you.

So gather your ingredients and preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C and yes, you need it to be that high both for the rise and for the crispy exterior, no cheating.

As you can see, it’s just a few basic ingredients here. Use real maple syrup for this, it’s not a large amount but it really pops in flavor.

So place the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a mixing bowl.

Stir with fork or whisk to combine well. Now add your maple syrup and vanilla extract.

Add cream

and mix all together quickly, scraping from bottom and sides. As soon as a shaggy looking dough (see above) forms, stop mixing. The dough should be fairly sticky, that’s correct.

K. Now line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using two tablespoons (remember it’s sticky, easier to form with spoons than your hands) make freeform rounds and drop onto parchment paper

using second tablespoon to scoop batter off. This yields 10 medium scones. Now brush tops with leftover cream and sprinkle tops with some demerara sugar.

Place in hot oven and bake 15-18 minutes or till golden brown. Cool on wire rack and serve with a lovely jam.

Cream Scones with Maple and Vanilla

Yields 10 medium scones

2 cups (250 grams) flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup (66 grams) sugar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup (250 ml) cream plus a bit for brushing tops with

Demarara (golden) sugar for sprinkling on top

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F/200 C.

Stir together with whisk or fork the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar till combined. Add maple syrup, vanilla extract and cream and combine till mixed and shaggy looking. Don’t overmix. Dough will be sticky. Place parchment paper on baking sheet and with 2 spoons drop rounds in ten scones. Bake about 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks. Serve with jam.