A stout lightens up the texture of these scones while adding a pleasant, slightly bitter chocolate flavor. A chocolate or a peanut butter stout adds a nice touch. A coffee stout will work, too.
I tend to use white whole-wheat flour in my scones to add dense nuttiness. In this case, the flour goes especially well with the malty notes of the beer.
Yield: 8 scones
Ingredients
Scones
- 2 cups white whole-wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed, plus more for greasing
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened creamy peanut butter
- 6 ounces chocolate stout, room temperature
- ½ cup dark or semisweet chocolate chips
Glaze
- ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened creamy peanut butter
- 1 ounce chocolate stout
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet with butter or cover it with a silicone baking mat.
Stir together the flour, baking soda, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter, and use a pastry blender or two knives to work the dough until the butter is in pea-sized pieces and evenly distributed throughout the flour.
Stir in the peanut butter. Add the beer, and continue to stir. If necessary, use your hands to gently knead the dough together. Add the chocolate chips and work them into the dough. Form the dough into a disk about 7 inches in diameter. Place it on the prepared baking sheet and press any chocolate chips that may have escaped into the top of the dough.
Use a pastry cutter or knife to cut the disk into 8 equal wedges, but leave them in place on the baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, until the center of the scones are firm and the edges are slightly browned. Remove from the oven. Run a knife through the cut marks while the scones are still warm. Separate and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
To make the glaze, stir together the confectioners’ sugar and peanut butter in a small bowl. Add the beer 1 teaspoon at a time, and continue to stir. You want a thick, but pourable glaze. Add more or less beer to reach this consistency.
Pour an equal amount of glaze over each scone. Use a spoon to gently spread some of the glaze, if necessary. Let the glaze set up, about 15 minutes, before serving. Store in an airtight container for as long as two days.
Excerpted with permission from Food on Tap: Cooking with craft beer (Countryman Press, 2017) by Lori Rice.
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2018 issue of Hobby Farms.
