Maple Date Scones

Maple and dates. A winning combination. You've seen me use this combination before in the form of my maple date bars, which I looooved. And I'm generally just obsessed with dates, and I first admitted my obsession back when I made a batch of tasty layered oatmeal date bars. But I have yet to bake with maple and dates in scone form....until today, that is! I recently bought buttermilk at the store to make some Irish soda bread later this week, but I knew I wouldn't need the whole container of buttermilk so I got to thinking about what else I could make with it. Scones!! Obviously. Buttermilk is such a common ingredient in scone recipes. So, I turned to one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, The Best of Cooking Light, to see which scone recipes I could find that looked good and matched ingredients that I had on hand. And that's how I came to make these delicious maple date scones!

Of note, the recipe calls for 2 cups of all-purpose flour, but I decided to add 1 cup of AP flour and 1 cup of white whole wheat flour. The scones feel a bit healthier that way, ya know? ;) The recipe below is what I followed when I made these. It really doesn't differ much from the original, but you can read the original recipe here if you'd like. The original actually calls for 1% milk, but as you already know, I chose to use buttermilk.

Ingredients:

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup white whole wheat flour

-1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1/3 cup (5 and 1/3 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

-1/2 cup chopped, pitted dates

-1/2 cup buttermilk

-3 Tbsp. maple syrup (I used the good stuff! the real thing from VT ;))

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the dry ingredients (flours through salt) in a large bowl; cut in the pieces of butter with a pastry cutter, fork, or two knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Randomly, I decided to use a whisk and it worked great to cut the butter into the flour mixture! Add the dates; toss well. Combine the buttermilk and syrup. Add to the flour mixture and stir well, until the entire mixture is moistened.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; knead 4 or 5 times. Pat dough into an 8-inch circle and place on a cooking sheet that's sprayed with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper. Score the dough with a knife, "cutting" it into 8 wedges. Do not cut all the way through the dough. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm with butter/margarine, jam/jelly, or plain! :)

I think I've mentioned this on the blog before, but a great tip for cutting up dates is to spray your knife with cooking spray first. Since dates are so sticky, this will prevent them from sticking to the knife! It works great.

The maple and date combination was yet again, not a disappointment! It was quite yummy.

These scones were incredibly easy to put together too, which was nice. I love when all ingredients can be mixed in one bowl.

I just had to taste test one, of course! I was able to hold off until after I took all my pictures, but then I dug right in. I enjoyed mine warm with a little bit of butter. Sooo good. Scones are such a comfort food for me. And this particular recipe came out with just the right amount of "flaky-ness" that scones should have, in my opinion. But they weren't dry in any way, and that's really important to me when it comes to scones.

If you haven't yet baked with the combo of maple and dates, I highly recommend that you do. Soon!