Spiced walnut and chocolate scones - International Scone Week

If you can't read this then my blog has been hacked!  I checked my blog earlier tonight and it kept redirecting to some dodgy widgetserver.com site.  Less than an hour later it had gone and my blog was back to normal.  I am quite disturbed by this.  So I tried to back up my blog and although Blogger will download, it will not let me open the file.  ARGH!  Sorry to open on such a down note when really you came here for international Scone Week so on with the post and fingers crossed it is online and not hacked!

If you look at my Scone section of my recipe index, you will see I have quite a lot of different scone recipes.  One reason is that I love to participate in International Scone Week.  It started with three bloggers sharing scone recipes and deciding to invite others to share them in an International Scone Week each year.  Now Tandy at Lavendar and Lime is continuing the tradition.  So I have baked her a batch of Spiced Walnut and Chocolate Scones.

I enjoy thinking about new combinations to try in scones.  This year I was inspired by some spiced walnuts that my mum had leftover from baking baklava.  When I went to use them, I was so disappointed to find they had gone mouldy.  By then I really wanted to make scones with walnuts.  So here were my ideas:

- Idea 1: baklava scones in honour of my mum's walnuts that I didn't get to use quickly enough.  I am not sure how I could do it but perhaps lots of walnuts, some honey and some spice.
- Idea 2 - walnut and marmalade scones because I have just finished reading P D James A Taste of Death.  She writes beautifully and with great attention to detail.  I really loved the description of a disappointing walnut and marmalade cake that is offered to Inspector Dagleish.  I even had some marmalade I could have used.
 - Idea 3 - spiced walnut and chocolate scones - this is a having my baklava idea and adding chocolate because chocolate makes everything wonderful and also because I want to post a chocolate dish this month for one of my favourite blog events.  I have been participating in We Should Cocoa over at Tin and Thyme for years and am really sad to hear this that it will finish after this month.  But I am thinking that I need something really chocolatey for the last hurrah.

So as you can see by the heading, I went with idea 3 - spiced walnut and chocolate scones.  I also used a fancy blackberry and orange chocolate from the lovely Cocoa Rhapsody that we love at our farmers market.  Luckily I only needed half of the chocolate.  It gave the scones a real lift but is also delicious to eat as is.

I looked for some recipes that were my sort of scones and found one for walnut and date scones.  I substituted the chocolate for dates and found a useful post on substituting honey for sugar.  Then I decided to simply the recipe.  I took out the egg and a few other ingredients.  The scones I grew up with never had egg (though my mum tells me my nan put egg in her scones but they never tasted cakey like some egg scones do).

I made these in a hurry on a busy day when no one else was about.  It was one of those odd days when i had eaten some bread and cheese for morning tea and decided just to eat these scones for lunch.  It was what I needed.  I made half the mixture and we ate the rest for supper.  Yet again I send my thanks to International Scone Week for inspiration.  (And let's pray to the internet gods that there is no more hacker activity.)

But it looks like the hackers are back so I am going to publish this and hope for the best! Update: have discovered I had to update from http:// to https:// redirect in the settings/basic of blogger.

More scone recipes from Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Beetroot, apple and walnut scones (v)
Gruyere scones
Kale scones (v)
Pumpkin scones
Pumpkin, pecan and poppyseed scones (v)
Strawberry marscapone scones
Walnut, brie and apple scones

Spiced walnut and chocolate scones
An original Green Gourmet Giraffe recipe
Makes about 10-12 mini scones

1 1/4 cup self-raising flour
1/2 tsp mixed spice
15g butter, chopped
1/3 cup chopped chocolate
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup milk
1-2 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 220 C and line an oven tray with baking paper.

Place flour and spice in a medium mixing bowl.  Rub in butter.  Stir in chocolate and walnuts.  Gently mix in the milk and honey to make a soft dough.  Turn out onto a floured board and knead a few times until smooth, if you call a lumpy nutty chocolate dough smooth.

Pat out to about 1 inch thick on a floured surface.  Cut into rounds (I used mini scone cutters) and knead and pat out the scraps so you can cut more until there is no dough left.  Place scones on lined tray.

Bake for 12 -15 minutes (I did 12 minutes) until golden brown.  Wrap in a teatowel until ready to eat (this softens the edges).  Best eaten on day of baking.

Notes - would add some lemon juice to the milk to curdle it.  1 tbsp honey rather than 2.  Also could make it vegan with vegan milk and butter and chocolate and maple syrup rather than honey - though would do 2 tbsp as maple syrup is not so sweet.

On the Stereo:
Coleur Cafe: Serge Gainsbourg