Buckwheat Scones with Pears & Chocolate

Scones have always been one of my favorite breakfast treats. When I was in high school, there was a local baker that brought them by every morning for us to but for breakfast, and just about every day, I bought one. The only flavor available was currant, but they were wonderful. Tender and creamy. I never did a lot of scone baking until recently, it was always biscuits in my house. I am so glad that that has changed, however, because scones are so fantastic. It is also the perfect thing to make in a large quantity then freeze, baking them as I need them.

I had some pears that needed to be used, and hadn't made scones for a while, so I started looking for a pear scone recipe and found this one at My Recession Kitchen. The thing that was most intriguing to me about these scones was the method for incorporating the add-ins - instead of incorporating them directly into the dough, the dough is rolled out, then sprinkled with the pears and chocolate, then rolled up a la cinnamon roll, then cut into slices. Genius! No fruit leaking juices into the dough creating extra moisture, no need to work fast to keep frozen fruit from thawing, no messy bleeding color from other fruits you could use, like strawberries, cranberries, blackberries, etc...

The technique worked perfectly, and these were fabulous scones. There is a lot of room to play around here, the filling possibilities are endless. I made some with chocolate and some without (for my son). I preferred the ones with chocolate. You wouldn't think that would be surprising, given my deep love for it, but I don't usually like it in breakfast treats. Of course, making them chocolate-free also makes them cane sugar-free (if you use palm sugar, as I did).

Buckwheat Scones with Pears & Chocolate

adapted from My Recession Kitchen

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/4 cup palm sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces and frozen

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 pear peeled and chopped into small chunks

2 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped into bigger-than-chip-size pieces

Preheat oven to 425. In a medium-sized bowl, combine flours, palm sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Drop butter pieces in, and working with a pastry blender, cut it in until the butter is well-distributed and there are pieces of varying sizes throughout the flour-mixture. Add buttermilk slowly, tossing mixture with pastry blender until all dry ingredients have been moistened. When a dough has formed, turn it out onto a well-floured board, and knead 8 times. Roll dough out into a 12" x 12" square. Fold into thirds, like a business letter, then fold into thirds again, forming a thick square. Wrap dough in plastic and place in freezer for 5 minutes. Remove dough from freezer and roll out into 12" x 12" square again. Sprinkle pear and chocolate chunks over surface of dough. Roll dough into a log. Cut log into 4 equal pieces, then cut each piece diagonally into a wedge. Place wedges on buttered baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes. Or freeze wedges, and bake them without thawing first, adding a minute or two to the baking time.

* If you need extra instruction on forming the scones, there are great step-by-step photos in the My Recession Kitchen post that is linked above