I like to think I’ve gotten pretty decent at baking over the years. Which means that true failures don’t happen too often any more. But I recently tried out a Peach Cobbler Scone recipe that was a total bust. They didn’t rise… they weren’t sweet… they were bland… disaster. And the recipe was even from a trusted source! But I was determined to make some peach scones, so I retooled. And it just goes to show that sometimes you need to go back to what has been Tried and True. In this case, I reworked these Oatmeal Raspberry Dark Chocolate Scones that Molly made several years ago. They’re truly some of the best scones ever, so I figured swapping out some fruits couldn’t ruin them.
And I was right! Swapping out the berries for peaches and the dark chocolate for white chocolate… a smashing success. The oatmeal lends that “crumble” taste and feel to them, and they had the perfect sweetness level. Just like I remembered! There’s oftentimes no use trying to mess with a perfect base recipe. It came in clutch and instantly revived my confidence
My only complaint is that I didn’t have enough white chocolate chips for the full amount, so I need to be sure to get more next time. I also would use a riper peach than I had, but I didn’t buy my peaches far enough in advance. C’est la vie. They were still great!
I need to get better about buying seasonal fruits… I’ve already done better this year by getting some rhubarb when it was in season, but I need to keep on it! Peaches have always been one of my favorite fruits! I should be going crazy with peach stuff this time of year! I should be buying enough to eat them every day! No matter how hard it is to buy fruit as a single person! I need to resolve to do this more often!
This is an aside, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found New Year’s Resolutions increasingly more dumb. I think they’re unrealistic, making elaborate changes all at once almost never sticks, goals often just set you up for failure… and making changes in the doldrums of January is especially hard. The years of adulthood already feel as if they slip by so quickly… Am I supposed to think January is a marker of some kind? Is the start of the year supposed to mean something? Slow down time for long enough to make a change? As an adult you blink and it’s AUGUST!
I recently learned that when babies learn how to do something (ie, sitting or rolling), that becomes their focus for a period of time, where they’re practicing it constantly and not working on other things as much. Adulthood (or at least, my twenties) feels annoyingly similar. You narrow in on one thing that needs to be done/improved/fixed, and it becomes your focus for a few days/weeks/months, while everything else falls by the wayside. My niece wasn’t babbling as much for a while because she was too busy crunching. I didn’t focus on buying seasonal fruit for a while because I was busy trying to figure out how to make my grocery bill as small as possible. I didn’t focus on any creative goals I had for a while because I was busy trying to get an income. It’s all the same! Babies and adults!
This is getting randomly quite rant-y. All I mean to say is, I suppose I can just start buying more seasonal produce now. For as long as I can manage to focus on it.
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PinIngredients
1 egg
1/2 cup cold buttermilk
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups old fashioned oats
1/ 3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh or frozen chopped peaches
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 stick plus 2 tbsp cold unsalted butter, grated on a box grater or cut into small pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and place a rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil and set aside.
- Stir the egg and buttermilk together and set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl. Using a box grater, quickly grate the butter until all is shredded and add to the dry ingredients, using your fingers to quickly incorporate the butter and flour mixture. If you don’t have a box grater, you can also simply cut the butter into small pieces and quickly rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it is pebbly.
- Pour the egg and buttermilk mixture over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be wet and sticky, comes together. Add the peaches and chocolate chips.
- Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand or turn it with a rubber spatula about 8 to 10 times. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and press the dough until you have a circle that is about 1 1/2-inches thick. Use a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop to portion out 12 scone dough balls. At this point the scones can be frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight. Don’t defrost before baking, just add about 2 more minutes to the baking time.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until their tops are golden and firm-ish. Transfer them to a rack and coel for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for the scones to cool to room temperature.