Maybe it’s the three years I spent in London–five months of which was spent pregnant and hungry, or perhaps it’s just because they’re a bit decadent, but I love scones. I love lemon scones, orange/currant scones, blackberry scones, plain scones with clotted cream and raspberry preserves–I love them all if they’re reasonably well made.

Interestingly enough, the best scones I ever had weren’t in London. They were, in fact, at the Soho Grand hotel in Manhattan many moons ago. My husband and I had just flown in from Europe, and when we finally got to our hotel room at about 1:00am, they had a small basket of fruit and two amazingly rich, warm, buttery scones waiting for us.

Of course, pretty much every time I’ve tucked into a scone, I have felt a sense of guilt knowing how unhealthy scones are. There’s virtually nothing redeeming about butter, white flour, sugar and cream. So when a mom from my daughter’s school passed around a recipe for gluten-free chocolate-chip scones made with almond flour, I decided to take a stab at making a healthy scone.

These are incredibly easy to make. They take 10 minutes or less to prepare, and only 20 minutes to bake. They have very little sugar, no cream or butter and all the healthy goodness of almonds. I serve them warm with a drizzle of honey or a bit of apricot spread.

Ingredients

2 cups almond flour

1/2 – 1 cup Bob’s Gluten-free all-purpose flour

2 T free-flowing honey (not the solid type)

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup organic yogurt

1 Tbsp canola oil

grated zest from one orange

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/3-1/2 cup currants or (1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix everything together with a spoon. (You don’t need to worry about over mixing since there is no gluten involved.) The mixture should be thick but not dry. Add a little more yogurt if needed. Drop 1/2-cup-sized blobs onto a lightly-oiled baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with a mixture of one egg yolk beaten together with one Tbsp of water (not a necessary step, but does make for a nicer finish on top). Bake 18-20 minutes or until the scones have a nice golden color. Be careful NOT to over bake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

These Whole Wheat Strawberry Almond Scones are the perfect breakfast treat. The almonds give off a really nice nutty taste. These scones are light and crumbly, bursting with strawberry flavor.

I don’t feel a bit bad eating one or two of these considering they’re sugar-free, full of oats and whole wheat flour, with a mix of almonds and flax seed meal and you’re pretty much ready to go. (Don’t mind all the butter– we’ll pretend it’s not there. Fat is good in moderation, right? And I suppose technically these aren’t sugar free because I sprinkled some raw sugar on top before baking but you could easily leave that part out and sprinkle more oats instead).

Whole Wheat Strawberry and Almond Scones

recipe slightly adapted from The Little Red House

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 6 T milk, plus more for brushing
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 & 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed (I used flax seed meal)
• 1 & 1/2 T baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 11 T unsalted butter, cold
• 1 cup strawberries, diced
• raw sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, whisk your maple syrup, 6 T milk, and almond extract together. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together your flour, oats, almonds, flax seed, baking powder and salt. Grate in your cold butter with a hand grater or put everything in a food processor and pulse until you get coarse crumbs.
4. Add your maple syrup mixture to the flour. Mix until you get a dough. If you need more milk, now is the time to add it. I added about an extra tablespoon of milk and that seemed to bring the dough together.
5. Mix in your strawberries, being careful not to overmix.
6. Put the dough on a floured surface and knead a time or two until you get the dough to come together. Put your dough onto your lined baking sheet and either make it into a circle and cut into even-sized pieces or do what I did and make your dough into a rectangle and cut into rectangles.
7. Brush the tops of your scones with a little bit of milk and sprinkle with raw sugar or more oats.
8. Bake 20-25 minutes or until baked all the way through.

– the Jilb

This recipe has been shared on Justa’s Fantastic Frugal Foods Link-Up!

Almond Scones with Strawberry Ricotta Spread

Almond Scone Ingredients:
1 c. almonds, 1 1/4 c. flour, 1/3 c. light brown sugar, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 c. butter, 1/4. tsp cinnamon, 1 c. milk, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 Tbsp. ice water, 1 Tbsp. almond extract

Almond Scone Directions:
Mix together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Roast almonds in oven for 10 minutes then chop almond in food processor until coarsely ground. Mix in flour mixture and almonds together. Cut in softened butter and milk. Mix in ice water and extract. Cover and refrigerate for 1/2 hour.  Preheat oven 350°F. Roll dough out, 1/4″ thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut scones using a biscuit cutter. Bake on a parchment lined baking tray. Bake about 20-25 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Strawberry Ricotta Spread Ingredients:
12 oz. ricotta cheese, 1/8 c. sour cream, 1/8 c. heavy cream, 1/2 c. sugar, 2 c. strawberries hulled and halved, 1 tsp. almond extract

Strawberry Ricotta Spread Directions:
Mash strawberries with sugar, allow to stand for 30 minutes. Use cheese cloth to squeeze extra liquid from ricotta*. Whip heavy cream until light and fluffy.  Mix all ingredients together, keep chilled.

*I forgot to do this, so mine turned out a little runny, but still tasted delicious.

Garnish with fresh slice strawberries or almonds.

Yum! This would be really good with a glass of champagne!

Once upon a summer, while vacationing in Maine, we hit the obligatory local-favorite lobster joint for dinner. To be honest, our meal didn’t feel at all obligatory, but rather like eating lobster in Maine, which is an indulgence on such a level that the “indulgence” of eating lobster in Arizona can’t rate, and so we never do it.

But it’s the after-dinner part of the story I want to tell you about, when just as we’d pulled out onto the road to get on our way to the next town for the night, we saw camped there on the side an ice cream stand. True, we weren’t particularly hungry, bricked as we were with lobster. Still the sign declaring the opportunity for Maine blueberry ice cream had us flipping a U-turn.

But when we asked at the window for just that – ice cream made with famed Maine blueberries – we were told they were out. That was that. Unnecessary craving unfulfilled. It’s an understatement to say we were disappointed. Sure, there were other flavors, a long list of them, but blueberry was the siren call, the what-might-have-been perfect ending to a regional dinner.

It was dark. It was late. The little town we were passing through was shutting down, making slim the chances of procuring blueberry ice cream at another roadside vendor. I don’t remember if I picked another flavor or just shrugged off the enterprise entirely.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately – about Maine, about the fact that I was denied blueberry ice cream in Maine – and that’s what urged me to make this blueberry soup.

I’m not often one for cooked blueberries – those simmered into softened, syrupy, sweetened submission and baked in a tart, for example. I like my blueberries fleshy and cold, stirred into plain yogurt with a faint trace of honey.

I know – sounds a little sketchy, a soup concocted of berries. Even as gazpacho is enjoying popularity and people are getting somewhat used to the concept of cold soup, I wonder if you’ll shake your head at this one. So think of it as a twist on the old smoothie if you have to: a smoothie with a certain savory quality, that isn’t supposed to be sweet and that should be served in a bowl. Add some almond scones for gentle dipping and call it a light Sunday brunch. That’s what we did.

Blueberry Soup

2 pints ripe blueberries

1 cup plain, nonfat yogurt

1 tablespoon honey

4 fresh mint or basil leaves

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Put the berries, yogurt, honey and herbs into a blender. Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Blend the mixture into a thick puree that’s still barely chunky, not smooth. Serve immediately, or store overnight in refrigerator.

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