If you read my newsletter (signup on the popup on the site if you don’t!) you know that I listen to a lot of food podcasts. One podcast, Spilled Milk, focuses on a specific food each episode and recently they talked about scones! I personally am a big fan of scones and I know I’ve already shared another scone recipe on the blog – these Lemon Sage Scones which were amazing. However, in this episode of Spilled Milk they mentioned an oatmeal scone and I was immediately intrigued. I love using oats in baked goods, they provide a tasty, nutty flavor, and in the recipe they talked about the oats are toasted which brings out even more tasty flavors.
I was going to just make the recipe for myself but I can never just make a recipe, you know? I switched out the sugar for honey and switched out the leavener to work with the honey and adjusted some things (okay, basically everything) to make these perfect, slightly crumbly, so flavorful scones. These may not look like much, and honestly the name makes me think of fancy skin care for some reason, but they’re perfection. Especially when you top them with a drizzle of local honey and enjoy with a cup of tea.
While these are easy and pretty simple, there are a couple of things to keep in mind to ensure perfection:
- Don’t skip toasting the oats! It brings out so many amazing flavors and you don’t want to lose out on that. You want them to get a little golden brown but keep a close eye on them, they burn pretty quickly. If you start to smell them it’s time to grab them out of the oven
- Use good honey. I know that people say this all the time and I always used to ignore it but…it’s true. Grocery store honey will definitely work! However, if you can get or already have local honey, this is the perfect time to use it. It has so much more flavor than grocery store honey and since that flavor really comes through you want that here.
- Don’t overwork the dough. When you stir things that have flour in them you build up the gluten. In some cases that’s what you want, think of when you knead bread. But here, we want them to be soft and light and building up the gluten would do the opposite. So combine the wet and dry ingredients until just combined fully but don’t keep going.
That’s it! They’re so good, and freeze beautifully so you can always have a stock of tasty treats waiting for you 🙂
Honey & Oat Scones (adapted from Cooks Illustrated)
makes 12 scones
Ingredients
- 130g oats
- 80g milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 84g honey
- 1 egg
- 215g flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 140g (10 Tbsp) butter
- 2-3 Tbsp turbinado sugar (granulated sugar works as well!)
How to do it
- prep: preheat the oven to 375*
- toast the oats: place the oats on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 7-12 minutes until slightly browned and you can smell them. Keep an eye on them, they’ll burn easily! set aside and increase the oven temp to 425*
- combine the wet ingredients: in a small bowl, combine the honey, vanilla, milk, and egg. set aside
- combine the dry ingredients: in a medium bowl, combine the flour, all but 2 Tbsp of the toasted oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
- cut in the butter: cut the butter into 1/2″ cubes and toss with the dry ingredients. using your fingers, two forks, or a pastry cutter squish the butter into the flour until it’s small, pea sized pieces.
- bring it all together: add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just combined
- shape and bake: turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. it’ll be a little sticky but that means the final result will be nice and light, just dust your hands and do the best you can. split the dough in half and shape each half into a circle about 1″ thick. top each with half of the reserved oats and half of the sugar, then cut into 6 wedges. transfer to a lined baking sheet and bake for 9-12
- let cool and enjoy! store in an airtight container for 3-5 days or in the freezer for several weeks.