Sweet Cranberry Cornbread Scones

I started getting creative with this recipe, I fear. Cornbread scones with soy milk, crème fraîche and dried cranberries. Hmm. It was a toss up as to how this was going to emerge. However, I survived, and actually enjoyed them, a big surprise to me, since I'm not a big fan of cornbread.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup corn flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup John Cope's Toasted Dried Sweet Corn (Rehydrated according to directions on the package)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

5  tbsp butter

1/2 cup crème fraîche

1-1/4 cup soy milk*

*See Notes

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Mix dry ingredients: flours, cornmeal, salt, baking powder and sugar.

2. Add butter and mix to coarse sand/pebble consistency (a few pea-sized lumps okay). Add crème fraîche and mix until uniform.

3. Add dried cranberries and rehydrated toasted sweet corn and mix.

4. Add soy milk and stir until the dough comes together. If necessary, knead a few times with your hands until it all sticks. 

5. Turn out onto a lightly floured countertop and flatten to 1/3-inch high. Cut into 8 pieces. Bake at 400ºF until brown around the edges or golden on top.

6. Serve warm.

Results & Notes.

These scones came out quite pleasant. They're not dense, have a slight sweetness to them because of the cranberries and sugar, and none of the corn ingredients overpower the scone. These scones pair extremely well with chili, or can be consumed on their own.

*I used soy milk because I was out of regular milk, but in order to make these dairy free, you'd have to replace both the butter and crème fraîche with a non-dairy version.

Sweet and Spicy Cornbread Scones

Well, it was one of those days where I needed to clean out the fridge before a trip and what better way to do that than with making up a scone recipe? This is a variation of another cornbread scone recipe that I created which had Crème Fraîche in it.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup corn flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup John Cope's Toasted Dried Sweet Corn (Rehydrated)

1 tbsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

5 tbsp butter
1-1/4 cup milk

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Mix dry ingredients: flours, salt, baking powder, sugar and spices.

2. Add butter and mix to coarse sand/pebble consistency (a few pea-sized lumps okay).

3. Add toasted sweet corn and mix.

4. Add milk and stir until the dough comes together. If necessary, knead a few times with your hands until it all sticks. 

5. Shape into a round and slice into 8 scones or use a cookie cutter to shape into rounds. Bake at 400ºF until brown around the edges or golden on top.

6. Serve warm.

Results:

These are a solid, basic cornbread scone. They really don't taste like cornbread much at all, which is probably why I didn't mind them. They weren't my favorite scone, but served alongside chili, they are a great complement. If I made them again, I would probably try them as a drop scone so that they'd not be as dry. That would mean increasing the milk used to probably close to 1-1/2 cups, and not forming them into triangles, but simply using a large spoon to scoop them out onto parchment paper and bake. I think if I did that, they would be softer and much less dry.

  

Cornbread Scones

Cornbread Scones with Butter

After the Royal Scone disappointment, I felt the urge to try something else. So I tried another savory scone recipe: Cornbread Scones! I only wish that I had made some chili to go with. 


This recipe I got from a scone recipe book that I bought in Culloden Battlefield gift shop last June (Scones by Genevieve Knights). I've worked my way through several recipes in this book, and found them quite good. To date, this is my favorite scone recipe book.


The Recipe:

Cornbread Scones


150 g plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
100 g butter
1 tablespoon ground cumin
100 g fine ground cornmeal
200 mls buttermilk


Preheat the oven to 450ºF. 


In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together. 


Add the butter, rubbing it in between your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs or sand. 


Add the cumin and cornmeal.


Mix in the buttermilk until just combined.


Lightly flour the countertop. Roll the dough into a log about 4 cm wide. Slice into 12 scones. Place the scones on a parchment-paper lined baking tray, cut side up. Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden.

The Process:

Ingredients, weighed out and ready to mix.

The dough after all ingredients were mixed together. It was a wetter dough, a little wetter than expected, but I followed the instructions and added all the buttermilk as called for.

Instead of cutting the dough log with a knife, I opted for the dental floss method that I learned from my mother (a wonderful baker herself). Slide the floss underneath the log as close to the counter as you can get, then place it at the desired width and criss-cross the floss above the top of the log. This avoids smashing the log of soft dough and misshaping the scones.

Raw dough ready to go into the oven...

Nicely browned after 7 minutes at 450ºF.

As the serving suggestions were to try cream cheese and cold cuts with the scones, I tried both. A creamy cheddar spread with some lunch meat on top was tasty.

Butter spread on top of the scones was quite good. Reminiscent of a milder cornbread.

Results:

I would definitely make these again. I'm not big on cornbread, but these had a light corn taste and would be excellent alongside some chili.