Café Au Lait Scones
Related Post: Scones Primer
Coffee-flavoured scones, ideal for dessert, breakfast or, yes, a coffee break! (This recipe is adapted from the orange cream scones at A Latte Food.)
Café Au Lait Scones
A scone with a hint of creamy coffee flavour. The stronger the coffee, the stronger the taste. I used a dark coffee for this recipe, but whatever you have on hand is fine. You can always brew it a little stronger to increase the intensity of the flavour.
Servings: 8 scones
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup Greek vanilla yogurt
- 3 tbsp 35% cream
- 2 tbsp brewed coffee, cooled, or to taste See Notes, below.
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
Icing
- 1 1/2 tbsp butter melted
- 1/2 -3/4 cup icing sugar
- 1 tbsp brewed coffee cooled
- 1 tsp 35% cream
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. (See Notes, below.)
- Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk together to incorporate.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt, coffee, cream, and extract. Set aside.
- Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is about pea-sized. The dough will have the texture of crumbs. (See Notes, below. Or see the Scones Primer for pictures.)
- Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and stir until dry ingredients are incorporated. If it looks a little dry, you can drizzle a tiny bit of coffee over it for more moisture and to bump up the coffee flavour.
- Gently knead the dough into a ball in the bowl, then turn out and begin patting into a circle until it’s about 1 inch (2.5cm) thick. You may need to squeeze the outer edges a bit to incorporate crumbly bits into the dough.
- Cut the dough into 8 evenly sized wedges and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Brush lightly with 35% cream if desired. (This gives a nice sheen to the finished scones.)
- Bake for 11-12 minutes, or until edges start to turn golden.
- Let scones cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, then move them to a wire rack. Place the parchment from the baking pan under the wire rack to catch drips when you ice the scones.
- After the scones have cooled for about 10-15 minutes, make the icing by whisking together all of the icing ingredients. If the icing is too thin, add more icing sugar, a teaspoon at a time. If it is too thick, add more milk or cream, a couple of drops at a time. (See Notes, below.)
- Drizzle or spread icing on cooled scones.
Notes
- I use a French press for my coffee, so I saved the grounds and poured enough boiling water over them to make the amount needed for this recipe. I let the whole mix steep for a few minutes, then poured out the coffee into a cup to cool. However you prepare your coffee, you can re-use the grounds as I did. Just pour the coffee out through a fine strainer to avoid having grounds in your scones.
- I used 2 tbsp (30 mL) of coffee in my dough. This resulted in a very mild coffee taste in the scones. You could go with 1 tbsp (15 mL) but the flavour of the coffee might not come through in the dough. It will come through in the icing, so it’s your choice as to the amount in the dough.
- Ovens can vary widely in temperature. I baked these scones for about 11 minutes. Watch your scones carefully the first time you make this recipe to ensure they don’t bake too long.
- The cutting process can take a few minutes but you want to be able to see pieces of butter in the dough, so don’t go too long with this step.
- The thickness of the icing is a personal preference. You can drizzle thinner icings in a nice pattern across all the scones or spread thicker icings across the top.
Image of coffee cup by Visual Generation | Dreamstime.com