The Baked Bake Along Begins: Nutella Scones

I'm very excited to be participating in my first bake along! Organized by Seattle Pastry Girl, BAKED Sunday Mornings is a way for bakers to make their way through recipes from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented as a group, with everyone posting about the same recipe every other Sunday. I am a big fan of Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito's cookbooks. From their first cookbook, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, I have tried the monster cookies, whiteout cake, raspberry crumb breakfast bars, peanut butter cookies with milk chocolate chunks, almond green tea cupcakes, sweet and salty cake, Baked brownie, root beer bundt cake, and peanut butter crispy bars. From Baked Explorations, I've already tried out the speculaas, heartland turtle bars, and sweet and salty brownies. I am delighted to be able to try out more of their recipes with other bakers!

Plus, I was particularly thrilled with the first assignment: Nutella scones! I love scones. I love Nutella. How could you go wrong by combining the two?

It only takes a few minutes to make this scone dough. You whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, and cut in cold butter. Then, you stir in a beaten egg and some heavy cream, gently knead the dough until it comes together, and incorporate some toasted hazelnuts (I have found a way to get around having to peel hazelnuts; Whole Foods sells blanched hazelnuts for about $11 a pound).

The recipe has an unusual way of incorporating the Nutella. You flatten the dough into a rectangle, spread Nutella on top of the rectangle (you're supposed to do this in a crisscross pattern, but I found it easier to just spread it over the entire rectangle), and then roll up the dough into a cylinder. You then turn the cylinder up on its end and flatten it into a disk, which you then cut into six or eight wedges to make the scone shapes. I had a little Nutella leak out of the top and the side seam of the cylinder when I flattened it, but aside from being a little messy, this doesn't cause any problems with the finished scones.

I've made this recipe twice. The first time, I made six scones from the batch of dough, and the scones were very large. The second time, I divided the dough in half, so that I could make two smaller disks of dough, each of which I cut into six wedges. That way, I got a dozen smaller scones (three inches by three inches), which were still a satisfying serving size. They finished baking a little faster than the regular size scones, in 15 minutes. All of the pictures in this post are of these half-size scones.

After the scones are baked, you drizzle on some warmed Nutella, which sets fairly firm upon cooling. The resulting scones are quite pretty, with pieces of hazelnuts sticking out from the tops and sides. The inclusion of the hazelnuts in the scones also provides a wonderful crunch to every bite and reinforces the Nutella flavor. The scones are chocolately and light, with the crumbly texture characteristic of scones. These are great scones, and I am happy to be able to add this recipe to my scone repertoire.

What a great way to kick off the bake along!

Recipe: "Nutella Scones" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at BAKED Sunday Mornings.