Almost every Saturday morning, Casey and I do the same thing. We sleep in a little later than usual, take our time getting ourselves and Cullen ready, and then we bundle up and head out into the neighborhood. With Cullen snuggled into the Ergo and ready for his morning nap, I zip my coat around him and we walk a few blocks to Flying Apron Bakery. (It feels strange to look pregnant again!)
Having a gluten-free vegan bakery within a short walk from our house is both dangerous and awesome. I like to mix it up and get different things each time, but Casey is 100% predictable. Every single weekend, it is always the same thing – the ginger currant scone. Yum.
Since he loves this particular scone so much, I figured it was only natural that I should try to make my own (less expensive!) version at home. It took a number of trials and versions, but the final product was worth the extra effort.
It sure is nice to have my own version of this delicious scone to dunk in my morning coffee.
Ginger Currant Scones
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20-25 minutes
Ingredients (8 scones)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/3 cup sucanat or organic cane sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 6 tablespoons Earth Balance
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds (+6 tablespoons water)
- 3/4 cup almond/soy milk
- 1/3 cup crystallized ginger, minced
- 1/3 cup dried currants
- extra sugar for topping
Instructions
Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. To make these scones, you use the traditional biscuit method for dough preparation. Don’t worry, I’m going to walk you through it. Making these brought back so many culinary school flashbacks – we made biscuits almost every day!
Okay, back to it. Add your flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and spices to a mixing bowl and stir to combine.
In a small separate bowl, add the 2 tablespoons chia seeds to 6 tablespoons water. Allow the mixture to sit for about 5 minutes until it becomes a "chia egg." I used to use flax eggs in a lot of my vegan baking, but recently I’ve liked the way chia eggs have worked better. The texture really does resemble an egg white.
While the chia seeds hydrate, prepare the butter. The key to a successful biscuit dough (I know these are scones, stay with me) is keeping your butter (or Earth Balance) as cold as possible. The colder the better, and frozen is actually best if you have time to freeze a stick ahead of time.
Working quickly, slice your butter stick into tiny pea-sized pieces.
Add the butter pieces to the bowl with your dry ingredients, and toss to coat them and distribute throughout the flour.
Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour for about 30 seconds. You want about half the butter to be worked into the flour, and half to remain little flour covered butter peas.
Put your bowl of flour and butter into the freezer in order to keep it cold while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Mince a few hunks of crystallized ginger into tiny pieces, in order to yield about 1/3 cup. These crystallized ginger pieces give the scones an exciting and unexpected spiciness.
Whisk 3/4 cup almond or soy milk into the now thickened chia egg.
Once combined, add the milk/chia mixture to your bowl of flour and butter. Use your hands to mix the wet and dry ingredients until they become a dough.
As the dough comes together, add the crystallized ginger and currants.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and form into a circle. Using a chef’s knife or pizza cutter, slice the dough into 8 even triangles.
Carefully transfer the pieces onto a greased cookie sheet.
Space the wedges about 1 inch apart, and sprinkle each wedge with an additional bit of granulated sugar.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown on top.
Serve with hot coffee and enjoy with a friend.
Scones are a great way to do something different when you don’t feel like making muffins. A simple and delicious breakfast, with just a hint of sweet and spice from the ginger and currants.
59 Comments so far
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Cute :) I can’t wait to make my future hubby scones some day. How did he like them? Did they pass the test ;) ? I love the idea of chopped crystallized ginger in baked goods – like those gingerbread cookies from last week!!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
He thought the final batch was great!
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Ellie@Fit for the Soul Reply:
January 22nd, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Same here, it seems so fun and heart warming to make this in the morning for my fiance when we get married! :D (hopefully i’ll be awake enough haha) And this looks really delicious!
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Looks like a beautiful recipe. I made your vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies 2 nights ago. Delicious! Any suggestions for substitutions for the white sugar?
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I didn’t try any other sugars, so I’m not sure. Glad you liked Madison’s oatmeal cookies – yum!!
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Michelle Eden @ From Seed To Tree Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Yes, they were Madison’s, weren’t they? Oops!
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yummy!
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Mmmm! I love crumbly scones!
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The Daily Garnish facebook post just shows the little picture of you with Cullen in the shirt and my first thought was, “I wonder why she’s posting a pregnant picture!”
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Haha!
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Love the flavor combination. The texture looks perfect! An around the corner bakery of any type sounds dangerous!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Thanks!! Now YOU need to make a gluten-free version. I wasn’t brave enough. :)
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Love the sweatshirt ;)
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I love recreating recipes and having access to them whenever you want! Saving money is always great too. My parents LOVE scones and are coming to visit tomorrow so I may give these a shot! Thanks for sharing :)
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Does Casey think they taste as good as the bakery one’s do? We have a great place in Charlotte that sells scones that my husband loves. I told him I could try to make the same ones at home and he told me not to because they would not taste as good! ha! :)
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Where in Charlotte!?! Casey has eaten three scones today. :)
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Whitney Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 5:14 am
Pewter Rose.. I think they are butterscotch scones… to.die.for :)
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I love scones but I have never attempted to make them. Love the flavor combos in this recipe! :)
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I wish I had a gluten-free bakery close – but it’s probably a good thing for my “bottom line” that I don’t!
I love Seattle – I think if I lived there I’d never cook!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
It’s true – there is so much good food here!
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Mmm, these ginger currant scones look delicious, Emily!!
http://hannahalehandra.blogspot.com/
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What do Currants taste like?
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Teeny tiny raisins!
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Hi Emily! I am in love with wearing my baby, as well! She’s four months, and it’s saved my sanity! Some suggestions; I use an M coat (http://themcoat.com/) and it’s so great to zip over Eloise and I!
Also, I remember you having trouble with your sling, a Balboa is more of a bag sling, a easier and safer sling would be a ring sling. Jan at Sleeping Baby Productions makes affordable and amazing slings, check her out!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
That coat is awesome!
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These look delicious. I absolutely love a good, flavorful scone for breakfast next to a piping cup of coffee. Do you happen to know how to make them gluten free or have any recs for flour substitution?
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Honestly, I’m not that good at gluten-free baking – still learning about it. So I’d hate to give you a recommendation and have it turn out badly. Do you read Edible Perspective? My friend Ashley has amazing gluten-free recipes!
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Gosh, these look fabulous! I love the addition of crystallized ginger.
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These look delicious. I love crystallized ginger in scones – it definitely adds oomph!
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How does Casey think they compare to the bakery’s??
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
He thinks they are great! The texture is different since ours aren’t gluten free, but same good flavor.
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I have the Flying Apron Bakery Cookbook, and I love it! I haven’t made any of their scones yet, but now I’m going to have to! Yours look wonderful!
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Scones are my number one vice, and currant scones are up there. I live in Boston, and Flour Bakery has an awesome currant scone that I just HAVE to get when I am near there. The other day they were out and I tried a ginger lemon which was also amazing. Now…ginger + currant…sounds pretty good to me! Thanks for sharing this recipe :)
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That looks way better than any Starbucks scone out there!
Question for you..how do you get the recipage format in the post? I just started using recipage last night (yay for it being free!) and am still trying to figure things out.
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
We are going to email the users about how to do that soon! But the quick answer is that there is a “get html” link within the recipe box – you copy and paste that code into your post, and it pops up!
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You look SO cute!
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what a lovely weekly tradition :)
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These look fantastic! I love scones.
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These look amazing!! My bf loves ginger scones, I’m going to have to surprise him with some! :D
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I grew up in Bellevue, but just moved into an apartment in Wallingford! It’s nice to hear about a good bakery so close to me :) yay!
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I cannot wait to make these! Thanks so much for sharing your creativity :)
I love your blog <3
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I can’t wait to make these! I’ve really been wanting to try out a scone recipe but didn’ have a good one! Thanks!!
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They look delicious!
I have a question about chia seeds – if you wanted to make this recipe NON vegan, how many eggs does 2 tablespoons of chia equate to?
PS – you didn’t even mention him in this post, but Cullen is SO cute. Love reading about him :)
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 10:02 am
2 eggs!
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I love scones & your recipe looks & sounds delicious :)
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Flying Apron would be a great way to spend a slow Sunday. Thanks for the latest recipe!
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I can understand why Casey sticks with these! They look wonderful. Congratulations on re-creating them, you did a fantastic job by the looks of things.
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I have that mug! Anthropology? Only mine has an M on it haha.
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I love the use of the chia “egg” it’s a great alternative in baked goods as well as flax “egg”
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When I still lived in Seattle, I would go to Flying Apron all the time for gluten free goodies. A friend of mine bought me their cookbook a few years back. My only objection with them now is that they haven’t evolved their recipes much in the past 5 years and still use predominantly garbanzo bean flour, when there are so many better options.
I will say their gluten free vegan peanut butter and jelly cake is the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. Love!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 10:01 am
Oooh I haven’t tried that cake – sounds delicious!
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Is that E mug from Anthropologie? Adorable.
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 10:01 am
Yep!
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Hi Emily- This is unrelated to today’s post, but I was wondering about the butternut squash and black bean enchiladas. I love them, but was wondering how much I could do ahead of time? Thanks so much!
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Emily Malone Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 10:01 am
I think you can probably make the sauce and filling ahead of time, and then assemble and bake it all when you’re ready!
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Oh, you dashed my hopes, thinking you’d posted a GFV scone recipe today! I’ll have to check out Ashley’s post for one. I’ve got all the flours, and Bob’s GFBaking mix, but have been nervous about trying them. I have the Flying Apron book somewhere (!), but to live down the street from them, I’d be there everyday for breakfast and coffee! Tho eventually I’d be making them at home too, like I should be now!
I too thought this was a baby bump pic, how cute! I love the idea of a Saturday routine out and about Seattle, ESP walking distance! Love scones, but a cinnamon roll, gluten-free and vegan, never had one! That would be pure heaven!
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Love Flying Apron! I haven’t tried that scone yet though- I need to!
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I had one of the berry scones from the Redmond Flying APron this morning! I looooove their cinnamon rolls!
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Dude, what a tasty idea for a scone, especially with the addition of currants instead of the more popular raisins or dried cranberries. I always forget about currants even though I absolutely adore them. Thanks for the great recipe. I think I’ll be making these for Christmas morning breakfast, if not before. Three days might be too long to have to wait :)
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