Buckwheat flour lends its distinctive toasty flavor to these buttery, moist, and tender scones studded with jammy blueberries. For a gluten-free option, make these gluten-free scones with buckwheat flour in place of the oat flour.
Prep Time: 20 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 20 minutesminutes
Freezing time: 45 minutesminutes
Total: 1 hourhour25 minutesminutes
Servings: 8scones
Ingredients
1 ½cupsblueberries (or huckleberries), fresh or frozen
1 ¼cupsplus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¾cupbuckwheat flour
¼cupmaple sugar (see note for substitutions)
1tablespoonbaking powder
½teaspoonsalt
5tablespoonscold, unsalted butter, in 1/2" pieces
about 1 ¼ cups heavy cream (as needed)
about 1 tablespoon coarse sugar, for sprinkling
Instructions
If using fresh berries, rinse and dry them, then place them in a loaf pan or pie plate in a single layer and freeze until firm, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle), combine the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter, and work in with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or mix on lountil the butter has broken down into tiny bits with some larger, pea-sized chunks remaining.
Use a flexible silicone spatula to gently stir in the frozen berries. Begin drizzling in the cream, tossing gently with the spatula (or a plastic bench scraper or your hands), adding cream directly to the dry bits, until the dough will hold together and no floury bits remain. You might not need all the cream.
Gently press the dough into a ball and place on a surface dusted lightly with buckwheat flour. Pat the dough into a 6" round that is 1 1/4" high. Cut the dough into 8 wedges. Place the scones evenly apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze until firm, about 45 minutes. (At this point, you can wrap and freeze the scones to bake off later.)
Meanwhile, position a rack in the upper-center of the oven and preheat to 425ºF.
Remove the scones from the freezer, brush with cream and sprinkle with the coarse sugar.
Bake the scones until they are golden brown, 20-25 minutes. Remove immediately from the pan to prevent blueberry goo-induced sticking. Let cool until warm as the scones are still cooking from residual heat. Serve warm with crème fraîche and extra berries.
The scones will keep for up to 3 days at room temperature. For most delectable results, re-heat in an oven or toaster oven before serving.
Notes
This recipe also works beautifully with wild blueberries or huckleberries, which are smaller and less liquid.If you lack maple sugar, you can substitute white, brown, or coconut sugar. Or add 1/4 cup maple syrup along with the cream, reducing the cream to 1 cup, adding more as needed.The scones keep well for several days; re-heated in a toaster oven, they taste freshly baked. Serve them warm with crème fraîche and extra blueberries.Nutritional values are based on one of eight servings.