White Chocolate Currant Scones

Yum!! I made these on Sunday morning for some house guests and they turned out wonderfully.

Saturday evening a large group of near 40 of our (my roommate's and I) friends went to a drums concert at the universities performing art center. The group/concert was called Day of the Drums. I was pretty impressed with their innovation of instrument construction and original compositions. And more than that I couldn't help but marvel and be impressed with their physical conditions. Going on a bit of a tangent here... drummers have nicely defined arms and this group was still doing cougar type lunged and jumping knee-chest touches during their last set. Never need to hit the gym when practice and performance is that much of a workout!

Ok, back on track. A couple of our friends stayed over after the concert; one who graduated a couple years ago just got married (!) so she brought her husband along too. All in all it was a good evening and with daylight saving the next morning I sort of dragged myself out of bed to get these made - but I was sure awake after tasting how good they turned out! Incidentally I had all of the ingredients without having to get out to buy more groceries - the buttermilk was left over from some Lemon Cornmeal Pancakes I'll write about soon.

White Chocolate Currant Scones (Buttermilk)

Ingredients

3/4 c. cold buttermilk
1/4 c. sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. white whole wheat flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 T chilled butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 c. dried currants
3/4 c. white chocolate chips
cooking spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°. Combine the first four ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Cut in chilled butter with a pastry blender, food processor, or try to use a wisk like I did... didn't work so well, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gently add in chocolate chips and currants. Add milk mixture, stirring just until moist.

Place dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly four times with floured hands. Form dough into an 9-11 inch circle onto baking sheet, about 3/4" thick. Using a knife,cut dough into 12 wedges all the way through.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or whenever your guest get out of bed. :)

The currants and white chocolate meld together well and the dough is pretty light/flakey in texture without all the added fats from all butter (we used buttermilk). Enjoy!