English Tea Scones with Chocolate & Currants

I love scones.
I love scones that are flaky and warm from the oven with a taste of chocolate and/or fruit in every bite. I love them with a cup of tea, I love them with a friend or three. I do love these scones you see. Gosh, I'm an awful poet.

All goofing off aside, scones are my favorite go-to for breakfast, and a batch is a snap to whip up. I began playing with this recipe more than 30 years ago when my sister returned with it from a student-teaching semester in Scotland. The original recipe does not call for buttermilk or currants or chocolate or even lavender. They are pretty plain, but pretty wonderful with butter and honey. Over the years I have varied the recipe enough to have them consistently turn out flaky and delicious. This recipe will make 16 good-sized scones, or more if you make them smaller.
Pssst!: I have included the lavender variation at the end just for you!

Let's make 'em!
Preheat the oven to 420 degrees F. Trust me, you want the oven HOT!
Prepare the baking pan or cookie sheet by greasing with butter or placing parchment paper on the pan.

Ingredients:
4 cups bread flour / unbleached all-purpose flour will work as well, the scones will be a little stiffer
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (one stick) chilled butter, cut into chunks
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup plus 1-2 Tablespoons cultured buttermilk (or whole milk plus 2 Tablespoons lemon juice)
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)
1 cup dried currants (or dried fruit of your choice)

Ready to mix them up?
1. Measure the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir together. Quickly cut in the chilled butter as if making pastry. I use an old-fashioned wire pastry cutter, but you can pulse the dry ingredients and butter in a food processor until the butter is fully incorporated into the dry ingredients and looks like very fine bits.

2. Crack the eggs into a separate bowl and beat them with a fork until they are pretty well mixed. Mix the eggs with 1 cup buttermilk.

3. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the egg and buttermilk and mix lightly with a fork until blended. If the dough seems too dry, add the extra buttermilk one Tablespoon at a time as necessary to have all the dry ingredients incorporated. The dough should not be very wet. Stir in the chocolate chunks and currants. Knead the dough right in the bowl with a light touch 4-5 times.

4. Divide the dough into two equal portions and gently roll each into a ball and pat flat to 1-inch thick flat round on the prepared baking pan. Use a knife or a bench scraper to score/cut each flattened round into 8 equal pieces.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the scones are lightly browned and completely baked through in the center. If the edges are browning and the center is still gooey (don't you love that professional word?), cover the dough with foil for the last few minutes to allow the center to continue to bake without burning the edges. My oven runs a little hot, so I usually bake them about 20 minutes.

Style variation: Pat the dough into a a rectangle to about 1 inch thick on the prepared baking sheet. Cut into 16 squares and move them to about 1 inch apart on the pan. These scones will bake faster and may be ready by 15-18 minutes.

The scones are fabulously delicious served warm from the oven, but will freeze well for later. Serve warm or at room temperature with a cup of tea or coffee or hot chocolate. You can never have too much chocolate!

Chocolate and Lavender Scones Variation

This past summer I had the amazing opportunity to work at the largest lavender farm in the Midwest - on Washington Island, Wisconsin, of all places! I lived, breathed, worked in, and ate lavender. Oh my.
You can make the luscious Chocolate and Lavender Scones pictured above simply by adding 2 1/2 Tablespoons of ground culinary lavender flowers and omitting the dried currants. Keep that chocolate in the recipe. Chocolate and lavender are wonderful together!