Taste & Create Plus One: Chocolate Chip Coffee Scones & Brownie Scones

Here's the deal: when I make anything coffee flavored for dessert, I usually need to make 2 things, because how cruel is it to make something my toddlers cannot eat? But I love coffee flavored desserts (although I cannot abide straight coffee), so 2 different scone flavors it was.


I got these coffee flavored scones from my Taste and Create partner, Love Big, Bake Often, although I did tweak them to make them, well, coffee flavored (the original recipe is from Cindy Mushet's The Art & Soul of Baking). They were supposed to be toffee, but hey coffee-toffee, who's worrying about the difference. Those flavors even rhyme! And while I cannot speak for the toffee version, the coffee version ROCKED--even John liked them (which probably means you could increase the espresso powder for an even stronger coffee flavor). The basic recipe for the scones can be found here at Love Big, Bake Often. To make a coffee flavored version, warm up the milk in the microwave, add espresso powder (I used 2 teaspoons) and stir to dissolve. Use cappuccino flavored chips in place of toffee chips, except use some semi sweet chocolate chips on top of the scones. Also, I used regular chocolate chips, not mini. Last, I made 12 scones to make them a bit smaller, so I baked them for about 10 minutes.


The Brownie Scone recipe I got from the Cooking Light Bulletin Board, although it originally comes from Nicole Rees' Baking Unplugged. This recipe is a tad sweeter and richer than the previous chocolate scones I have made. Both are excellent, although in both cases I did prefer the non-chocolate scone that I made with chocolate chips (last time it was butterscotch). I did not change the Brownie Scone recipe at all, other than to use mini chocolate chips instead of finely chopped chocolate. I used Scharffenberger natural cocoa powder.