Baked Sunday Mornings: Carrot Coconut Scones with Citrus Glaze

I've had a great time being part of Baked Sunday Mornings.  Not only is it wonderful being able to bake along with other bloggers, but Seattle Pastry Girl has done a fantastic job organizing the bakealong, and she selected several recipes that I'm pretty sure I never would have tried if left to my own devices.  "Carrot Coconut Scones with Citrus Glaze" is one of those recipes.  I make scones fairly regularly, both savory and sweet.  And even though I love both carrots and coconut, somehow the idea of putting them together in a scone didn't seem all that appealing to me. 

These scones contain a carrot puree that is made from cooked carrots and freshly squeezed orange juice.  You are supposed to microwave the carrots and juice together until the carrots are soft, and then puree the mixture in a blender or food processor.  Since Tom and I don't own a microwave, I just steamed the carrots and used an immersion blender to puree them with the orange juice.  (Incidentally, I often make a carrot macaroni and cheese from Food & Wine that starts out the exact same way -- cooking carrots with orange juice, and then blending until smooth.) 

To make the scones, you combine flour, sugar, oats, baking powder, salt, and shredded sweetened coconut in a bowl, and rub in cubes of cold butter until the mixture is coarse.  Then you add in all of the wet ingredients (egg, buttermilk, vanilla, and carrot puree), and stir until the dough comes together.  This dough was very sticky and and somewhat difficult to handle, but using quite a bit of flour, I was able to shape the dough into discs and cut them into wedges.  Supposedly this recipe yields 6 to 8 scones, but I made 12 scones from each batch of dough, and they were what I would consider to be normal size. 

After the scones are baked and cooled, you are supposed to drizzle on a glaze made from powdered sugar, fresh lemon juice, and fresh orange juice.  Since my glaze was quite thin -- even after I added some extra powdered sugar -- I decided not to bother with drizzling.  Instead I just dunked the tops of the scones into the glaze to coat the entire top.  After the glaze set (which took just a few minutes), I dunked a second time just for good measure.  Then I sprinkled on a little toasted coconut.

This scone was lightly sweet, with lots of chewy coconut texture.  I loved the citrus glaze, and I'm very glad that I dunked the entire top of each scone in it, because the glaze gave each bite a bright lift of flavor.  There was only 1/4 cup of carrot puree in each batch of scones, and they were not very carrot-y (although you could definitely see orange-colored bits of carrot throughout).  These also were not crumbly like most other scones I make, but I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I (and everyone else who tried them) liked them.  The citrus glaze is the perfect pairing for the scone; together they are a delicious and fresh combination of flavors and textures.  I would happily make these again.

See what the other Baked Sunday Mornings bakers thought of this recipe here.

Recipe: "Carrot Coconut Scones with Citrus Glaze" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.