Chocolate and cherry scones: a recipe

Chocolate & cherry scone

Observation: Posting about crack cookies yielded interesting comments and a follower that actually called herself "Team Ninja", while posting about collards yielded chirp-chirp crickety silence.

So let's talk chocolately tarty baked goods!

I love scones and was pleasantly surprised when I realized how easy they are to make. In fact, one of my favorite scone recipes came straight from the side of a Land-o-Lakes half-and-half carton (I am no recipe snob, my friends -- a good recipe is a good recipe).

I adapted this scone recipe (below) from one of my favorite blogs, Dinner with Julie. I will warn you that Julie's scone dough is very sticky and a bit tricky to manipulate, but please try to persevere, as the end result is really moist -- like a super-dense cake inside, with a crunchy scone outside!

Her original recipe called for white chocolate, with I think is really gross, so I went with semi-sweet chocolate chunks instead.

But have at that nasty white chocolate, if you are so inclined.

And let me know what you think, or I'll hit you with some more greens recipes next week.

Chocolate and Cherry Scones (adapted from Dinner with Julie)

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cold butter, cut into chunks
1 cup chocolate chunks
3/4 cup dried cherries
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
coarse sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and blend it with a pastry blender or your fingers until well combined and butter bits are smaller than a pea. Stir in the chocolate and cherries.

Whisk together the buttermilk, egg and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add this to the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Pat the dough out into a 1-inch thick circle on a non-stick baking mat-lined or parchment-lined baking sheet. Using a serrated bread knife coating with a little cooking spray, score the dough into wedges (this helps them break apart more easily after baking). Sprinkle with coarse sugar and bake for about 20 minutes.