The Best Whole Grain Blueberry Scones

These whole-grain scones are gluten-free and delicious.  Have them with your afternoon tea or for a hearty breakfast treat.  These scones are made with the traditional method and all the traditional ingredients - minus the gluten.

What is gluten anyway, except an impediment to soft, delicate scones?  With wheat flour you have to be careful not to manipulate pastries too much for fear the gluten will make them tough.  You don't have to worry about that with these gluten-free scones: they will come out soft and delicious.

Whole-grain Blueberry Scone Recipe

The secret to getting the right texture of scones is to keep everything cold while mixing.  Some people put the pastry cutter, butter, and bowl in the freezer for a few minutes before starting to keep everything cold enough. The coldness is necessary so the chunks of butter can form little pockets in the dough when they melt away in the oven.  This creates air space for the baking soda to do its work and rise.  The scone should come out a soft, flaky pastry.


I have provided the ingredients in metric for my international audience as well as those conscientious bakers who like to weigh their ingredients for better accuracy.




Heat oven to 400 F/ 205 C.

Mix together in a large bowl:

3/4 cup Teff flour (122 g)
3/4 cup Sorghum flour (106g)
2 Tablespoons Tapioca flour (12g)
2 Tablespoons Potato starch (17 g)
1/3 cup sugar (65g)
1 Tbsp baking powder (make sure it's GF)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Cut into pieces and drop in:

6 Tbsp cold unsalted butter (90g)


Cut the butter in with a pastry blender or two knives, coating the pieces with flour as you go, until the largest pieces of butter are pea-sized. Keep this mixture cold, chilling it in the freezer if the butter starts to soften.

Whisk together in a separate bowl:

3/4 cup chilled cream (175 ml)
1 egg
1-2 tsp orange or lemon zest (optional)
1/3 cup fresh blueberries (55g)

Add the wet ingredients to dry the ingredients. Stir until the mixture starts to hold together, then gently knead the dough a few times with your hands. If the dough is too sticky to handle once it's combined, you can add about a tablespoon of flour to coat the surface of the dough for easier handling. If the dough seems dry and won't hold together easily, add 1-2 Tbsp more cream and knead it in, being careful that your butter chunks don't melt into the dough.  If the dough starts to get too warm during mixing, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes before proceeding.

Put the dough on a large baking sheet. Gently push the dough into a flat disk about one inch high. Cut into eight equal pieces and arrange them on the baking sheet about one inch apart. Brush some cream onto the tops of the scones. Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out clean.

Let cool slightly, then enjoy your scones!  These can be eaten warm out of the oven, or at room temperature.

Looking for a vegan scone recipe?  Try my my Gluten-free Vegan Scones.
If you liked this recipe, you might also like:

Visit the Gluten-free Homemaker's blog carnival for more gluten-free recipe ideas!

Bacon-wrapped Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese

Bacon-wrapped dates are a Spanish delight.  You can get them at tapas places, but they are amazingly easy to make on your own.  The name really says it all.  There are only three ingredients:

• bacon
• dates
• goat cheese

Just get some thin-cut bacon, pancetta, or guanciale.  I used bacon here. You can cut a normal bacon strip into thirds.  With a knife, slice the dates length-wise and extract the seed.  In the hollow that is left from the seed, stuff in some goat cheese.  Wrap the whole thing once around with bacon until the bacon folds over itself.  Sear the wrapped date on a hot pan on 2-3 sides until the bacon is browned.  Carefully insert a toothpick into the tender part of the bacon to keep it all in one piece.  Serve warm, or at room temperature.

My Holiday Recipes

If you are looking for holiday recipes, you have come to the right blog.  Each year I have been blogging I have added several holiday-inspired recipes to my archive.  Here is the tally so far:

• Gingerbread Cookies 
• Teff Sandwich Bread
• Traditional Bread Stuffing 
• Butternut Squash Pie
• Pie crust   
• Turkey Soup
  

See the Recipe Archive for more gluten-free recipes.

More Holiday Gift Ideas

Do you have a gluten-free person on your Christmas list?  Here are a few ideas on what to give them for the holidays:

The Essential Gluten-free Restaurant Guide by Triumph Dining.  I used this book to help flesh out my list of gluten-free dining options in Portland, and it's been a valuable resource on trips as well.

Gluten-free Girl and the Chef.  If you don't already have it, get it for yourself or a loved one!  It's available here in Portland at Powell's, among other places online.  My mom got this for me for Christmas last year.  It's a useful recipe book to have.

A Pullman Loaf Pan.  This style of bread pan is ideal for making Gluten-free sandwich loaves because it gives you bigger slices.  My dad gave me one for Christmas two years ago and I've gotten a lot of use out of it.  I created my Teff Sandwich Bread recipe in it.

Want to get something memorable and impressive?  Try this Chantal Copper tea kettle.  It's a timeless classic.

For more ideas, see my post What I would Love for the Holidays.

Dick's Kitchen Gluten-free Options

Gluten-free burgers with GF buns.  Flourless chocolate tortes.  Gluten-free beer.  Charming NW Portland.  Need I say more?

Well, you probably think it's too good to be true - or too expensive to be prudent.  I'm happy to say that the burger is tasty and the Jensen's GF Better Bun is fantastic.  The prices are reasonable, although they of course charge a little extra for the gluten-free bun.  The "Not-fries" are gluten-free and so is the flourless chocolate torte with salted caramel sauce.  The caramel sauce wasn't the best part of the torte - it was too chewy - but the torte itself was excellent.  The menu is very clearly labeled with the gluten-free and vegan options, and the servers are very knowledgeable and helpful.

Dick's Kitchen has two locations - one on Belmont and one that just opened in NW Portland.  The Northwest location features a full bar and a cool modern diner atmosphere.   Combined with the fact that it's near where I work, the Northwest location may end up being my haunt of choice.

What I Would Love for the Holidays

I've always envied people who have birthdays in the summertime.  Mine is in November.  While I covet the idea of having a birthday party in the garden,  I also relish the cozy world of birthdays in November.  Here was my best birthday gift:

Yes, my boyfriend got me a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.  It was mostly to avoid being asked to mix things like this bread by hand for ten minutes straight, but still.  It was the best present ever.

Some other things I'm thankful for, or that I'd love to see under the Christmas tree, include:

 

Traditional Bread Stuffing, Gluten-free

This holiday season you may find yourself craving a good old-fashioned stuffing with moist, fluffy bread cubes and lots of sage and thyme.  Well, you can have that.  Even if you're gluten-free.

I had a few failures before I got the hang of making this recipe with gluten-free bread, so let me give you a few clues as to how this recipe is different than a regular one.  The first thing you should know is that the bread cubes may need to be cut smaller than with gluten-containing bread cubes, especially if the bread you are using is the very firm, heavy type of gluten-free bread.  That stuff can expand enormously, and  you end up with huge cubes once they absorb all the liquid, or dry hard-centered cubes if they don't absorb all the liquid.  Weigh the bread rather than trying to measure the cubes.  GF bread just doesn't have a consistent volume per variety so you can't measure by volume.  If your bread is very dry, you can skip the toasting.  The other thing that makes this stuffing different is that it calls for a lot more liquid.  The GF bread just needs that in order for the stuffing to work.

Use your favorite gluten-free bread.  I used a combination of my Teff Sandwich Bread and a white sandwich bread, but I have had success with bread from New Cascadia Traditional Bakery using the above guidelines.


Recipe for Gluten-free Traditional Bread Stuffing

Chop into small pieces:

2 Cups Onion
1 Cup celery

In a large pan, sautee the onion and celery with:

1 stick (8 Tbsp) unsalted butter

While you are waiting for the celery and onions to cook until they are translucent, cut into small cubes:

1 pound gluten-free bread, dry or toasted

Set aside.  When the onions and celery are traslucent and tender, turn off the burner and add:

1 tsp salt (less if your stock is very salty)
pepper to taste
1 Tbsp fresh sage, minced
1-2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 Tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dry thyme, minced

Stir to incorporate.  Slowly stir in:

Approximately 2 cups warm chicken stock

Stir until everything is combined, but don't let the bread cubes fall apart.  Add more stock if needed.  The stuffing should be very moist.  Stuff your bird while the dressing is hot, or cook in the oven at 400 for 20-40 minutes, or until the top starts to toast.

For more gluten-free stuffing ideas, visit the blog carnival at the Gluten-free Homemaker, where Linda is featuring stuffing this month.  Enjoy!