Chocolate Cherry Scones — Day 2

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cherry chocolate scones
Where’s that cup of tea to go along?

You’ve steeped the cherries overnight, so let’s just get started on making the scone dough, shall we?

Remember: we made a double batch — not recommended — so our photos will show twice as much as you’ll be making.

So you don’t have to refer to yesterday’s post:

Chocolate Cherry Scones

Author: Shawn

Ingredients

For the cherries

  • 118 g water (1/2 cup)
  • 105 g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
  • 20 g kirsch (optional) (1 Tbs + 2 tsp)
  • 1/4 vanilla bean split lengthwise
  • 105 g dried tart cherries (3/4 cup + 2 Tbs)

For the scones

  • 332 g all-purpose flour (2 1/4 cups + 2 Tbs)
  • 6.5 g baking powder (1 3/8 tsp)
  • 4.5 g baking soda (3/4 + 1/8 tsp)
  • 2.2 g kosher salt (3/4 tsp)
  • 133 g cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (9 Tbs + 1 tsp)
  • 178 g heavy cream (3/4 cup)
  • 105 g chocolate chips (1/2 cup)

For the glaze

  • 100 g Confectioners' sugar (3/4 cup + 2 Tbs)
  • 45 to 50 g Reserved cherry syrup (2 1/2 to 3 Tbs)
  • 30 g heavy cream (2 Tbs)

Instructions

For the cherries -- Day 1

  • In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine water, sugar,and kirsch, if using. Using a sharp knife, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add seeds and bean to the mixture. Bring to a simmer. Strain to remove large pieces of vanilla. Return syrup to pan, add cherries, and bring back to a simmer. Remove from heat and cool.
  • Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate overnight.

For the scones -- Day 2

  • Strain cherries, reserving about 3 Tbs of the syrup for making the glaze.
  • Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and mix on low for about 15 seconds.
  • With the mixer on low, add butter pieces and mix for about 3 minutes to incorporate the butter completely.
  • Slowly add cream and mix just until a dough forms around the paddle. Scrape down sides and bottom of the bowl.
  • Add cherries and chocolate chips, and pulse to combine.
  • Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours to firm the dough.
  • Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.
  • Use an ice cream scoop to form about 30 equal portions of dough, placing on lined baking mat. Wrap and freeze until solid, overnight.

For the glaze -- Day 3

  • Preheat oven to 350°F. Arrange scones on baking sheets lined with silicone baking mats or parchment, leaving 1-inch spacing between each.
  • Bake for 25 to 27 minutes, rotating top to bottom and front to back halfway through, or until golden brown.
  • While the scones bake, whisk together powdered sugar and 45 g (2 1/2 Tbs) reserved syrup in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in cream, adding more syrup if needed to maintain a glaze-like consistency.
  • Brush glaze on scones immediately after removing from the oven. Cool completely.

Ingredient discussion:

Check yesterday’s post if you want to know our recommendations.

Procedure in detail:

straining cherries
We don’t have a strainer, so we place a clean piece of cloth in a funnel and use that.
reserved liquid
Remember to reserve some of the cherry liquid for making the glaze.

Drain cherries. If you have a fine mesh strainer, you’re probably all set; just place the cherries in there and let them drain away. Be sure and remember to keep about 3 tablespoons of the liquid, and err on the side of saving more, since you can discard any excess. We don’t have a strainer that would work for all these cherries, so we rigged up a piece of clean butter muslin in a funnel set over a glass. We put the cherries in the top (in two batches) and let them drain. Then we poured off about 3 ounces (double batch, remember, and 2 tablespoons make an ounce, so 6 tablespoons).

 
dry ingredients for scones
Sift if you want; we didn’t, but make sure to mix the dry ingredients thoroughly before adding butter.

Mix dry ingredients. Measure the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, into the bowl of a stand mixer. The original recipe called for sifting the baking powder and baking soda to break up any lumps, and we thought about it, but, we took the shortcut and just added them to the mix. Next, add the salt, and place the bowl on the stand mixer fitted with the paddle. Mix on low for about 15 seconds to combine. Since we didn’t sift, we mixed for about a minute.

 
adding butter
We added the butter as the mixer was running. We find it a bit less likely to spew flour that way.

Add butter. With the mixer running on low, add the butter pieces in several handfuls and mix until the butter is completely incorporated, about 3 minutes. You want all the butter mixed into the flour; no chunks of butter should be visible, if so, break those up with you fingers and mix in. (At this, stage we had our first inkling that a double batch wasn’t the best idea. Flour poofed out, and the mixer occasionally had a bit of trouble with the butter pieces.)

 
adding cream
Slowly pour in the cream and mix on low until a dough forms.
scone dough
The dough is very stiff, and with our double batch, the mixer really strained.

Add cream. With the mixer still on low, slowly pour in the cream and mix until a dough forms around the paddle. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to incorporate any remaining flour mixture. At this point, with our double batch, we had to stop using the mixer. It was too much dough. If you’re making a single batch, you should be fine.

 
chocolate chunks
Don’t order chocolate chips to be delivered in the warmer months. unless you want a huge “chip” that you chop into pieces.
adding cherries and chocolate chips
We had to stir in the chips and cherries by hand, but with a single batch, you can pulse them in using the mixer.

Add cherries and chips. Add the cherries and the chocolate chips and pulse the mixer about 10 times to combine. We had to do this by hand with a spoon, not bad, but a little lesson learned. You may notice that our chips are more like chunks. We order our chocolate chips in large bags to save money while getting a better quality chocolate. Unfortunately, the last time we ordered, it was pretty warm and some of our chips melted into blocks during shipping; we had to chop them apart with a chef’s knife. Another lesson learned.

 
cherry chocolate scone dough
Right after mixing the dough will be pretty soft, so chill it to firm.

Refrigerate. The dough will be soft, so cover it and place it in the refrigerator to chill and firm up, about 2 hours.

 
portioning dough
Ice cream scoops are perfect for portioning out dough. Equal portions mean even baking.

Portion. In the original recipe, a single batch was divided into 12 portions using a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop. We wanted smaller scones, and more of them, so we used a 1 1/2 tablespoon scoop and formed about 30 scones (60 for our double batch). You can make whatever size you want. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat, or parchment, and scoop out the dough, placing the scones on the sheet.

 

Freeze. Wrap the scones and place in the freezer. We placed ours in the freezer for about 30 minutes, then transferred them to plastic bags, so we didn’t bother wrapping. You can do the same, or just wrap in plastic and freeze completely. Whatever you do, freeze the scones at least overnight.

Okay, that’s all you can do for day two. Also not bad, right? It’s kind of nice to have these recipes that take several days, with the amount of each day’s work being small and manageable. It makes it seem as if we can make and bake nearly anything.

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