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.