linbakesbread

Good morning fellow bread-bakers.

Okay – I have to admit, I’m about half way through the year and it’s getting very hard to keep up with my New Year’s resolution. But I think with the 4^th of July weekend coming up, I can make up for lost bread baking and double up on my bakes. So, today I’m making an old favorite: Maple-Oatmeal Scones from one of the first Barefoot Contessa (i.e. Ina Garten) cookbooks. I haven’t make them in forever, but I need to change things up a bit and they sound good to me and something that I can easily share with the guys I work with (who have shared in my bread-baking journey).

Here is the recipe. Please bake Maple-Oatmeal Scones with me.

Quite a few ingredients!

Scones:
3 ½ cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats plus additional for sprinkling on top
2 Tablespoons baking powder
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, diced

½ cup cold buttermilk
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
4 extra large eggs, lightly beaten

1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon of water for wash

Glaze:
1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
½ cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Prep: Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, mix together the flour, whole wheat flour, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in butter until it’s pea size.

Mix wet ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, syrup and eggs.

Combine ingredients and form scones: Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until just blended. The dough will be sticky. Dump onto well-floured surface. Flour hands and rolling pin and roll dough to ¾ to 1 inch thickness. You should see lumps of butter in the dough. Cut into 3-inch rounds (or into little squares if you don’t want to have to re-roll) and place onto baking sheet. Brush tops with egg wash.

Baking: Bake for 20-25 minutes until tops are crisp and insides done.

Glaze: Combine powdered sugar, syrup and vanilla until smooth. When scones are done, cool for 5 minutes and drizzle with glaze. Sprinkle uncooked oats on top.

The finished scones:

Reflections on this bake:

Tasty, but unfortunately I over-baked them or the oven was too hot. The bottoms got a little too dark. The other thing I forgot -- to sprinkle the oats on the glaze right away. If you wait too long like I did, the oats will just fall off. It’s still a keeper recipe, however. The maple glaze is the best part!