Kicking off fall baking season with spiced apple scones. The natural sweetness of fresh Gala apples is enhanced by warming spices to make for the most flavorful and melt in your mouth scones.
In spite of the unusually warm weather, it is officially fall, my favorite season! I am beyond excited to dive into baking all of my favorite fall inspired treats starting with these spiced apple scones. To be honest, I am more of a biscuit girl; but, every now and then, I like to switch things up and have scones. This weekend was one of those moments. Seeing that I had fresh Gala apples on hand, I decided it would go great in the scones I was planning on making for Sunday brunch. What an amazing idea that was! The combination of the sweet Gala apple with spices like cinnamon and allspice made for one of the most delectable scones that I have ever made.
The Perfect Scones
Ideally, the perfect scones should be:
- Melt in your mouth soft but crisp along the edges
- Not dry
- Not crumbly
To achieve such a scone, it is essential to:
- Not overmix dough—overmixing the dough will over develop the gluten in the flour and evidently lead to a dry and crumbly scone—every bakers’ worst nightmare!
- Keep the butter in scones cold by freezing for at least 30 minutes before baking—the goal here is to prevent ending up with flat, dry scones due to overspreading as the scones bake. Additionally, as the cold butter melts from the heat of the oven, it aids with the rise and formation of soft, flaky scones.
How to Make Spiced Apple Scones
Key Ingredients
- Apples – here I used Gala apples mainly because I love its crisp, natural sweetness. To ensure that every bite of these scones had some apple in it, I grated the apple before incorporating it into flour mixture. However, if you prefer chucks of apples in your scones, then the apple maybe chopped instead grated before mixing into flour mixture.
- Butter – adds incredible flavor and makes for a soft, flaky scone when properly mixed into dry ingredients. There are several methods of incorporating the butter into flour mixture. These include either using your hands/pastry cutter, food processor or a grater to cut cold butter into small pieces. My preferred method is using my fingertips to form small flattened discs of butter in flour mixture.
- Spices – one of the things I love most about fall bakes are the spices. There is just something so comforting about the smoothing warmth that spices adds to food. With that said, I wanted these scones to be filled with the fragrant aroma of spices and landed upon the combination of cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg.
- Buttermilk – For an incredibly moist scone, buttermilk is an essential ingredient. Although, these scones can be made with regular milk/liquid of choice, I find the way that the buttermilk reacts with the baking soda in this recipe makes for the most soft and melt in your mouth scones.
Making the Dough
Starting with the apple, peel, core and quarter a medium baking apple of choice. Grate the apple pieces. With a clean kitchen towel, squeeze out excess liquid from grated apple and transfer to a small bowl. In a standard measuring cup or small bowl, add and whisk to combine the buttermilk, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. Place wet mixture in the refrigerator until ready to use. In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients except the grated apple and whisk to combine. Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, incorporate butter into flour mixture until you have visible pea sized pieces of butter. Mix grated apple into butter-flour mixture ensuring to breakup any clumped pieces of apple. Pour cold liquid batter into dry mixture and mix just until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Dough should not be smooth!
Shaping the Dough
Transfer dough onto a well-floured surface and dust some flour on top before using your hands and a bench scrapper to shape dough into a small rectangular shape. With a rolling pin, roll out dough into roughly a 8” x 3” rectangle using the bench scrapper to help maintain rectangular shape. Cut dough down the center into two equal halves and then cut each half of dough diagonally for a total of 4 scones. Place scone pieces onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 30 minutes before baking.
Helpful Tips
- I used a Gala apple; however, any variety of baking apples would work great in recipe as well.
- Although, regular milk can be used in recipe, I strongly recommend using buttermilk since it adds great flavor but also helps in making for a perfectly soft scone.
- Do not over mix dough. Overmixing the dough will over develop the gluten in flour resulting in crumbly, dry scones.
- Placing scones in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before baking will allow the butter to firm back up. This is an essential step since cold butter as it melts during baking helps with the rise and flaky texture of the scones.
- Scones are best eaten the day it is prepared.
- Recipe makes 4 scones but can be easily doubled to yield a higher quantity.
Spiced Apple Scones
Kicking off fall baking season with spiced apple scones. The natural sweetness of fresh Gala apples is enhanced by warming spices to make for the most flavorful and melt in your mouth scones.
- Prep Time: 1 Hour
- Cook Time: 24 Minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
- Yield: 4 Scones
Ingredients
Spiced Apple Scones
• 3/4 Cup White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/4 Cup Raw Cane/Granulated Sugar
• 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Allspice
• 1/4 Teaspoon Ginger Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/8 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
• 1 Large Egg Yolk, Cold
• 1/4 Cup + 1 Tablespoon Buttermilk, Cold
• 1/4 Cup (2 Ounces) Unsalted Butter, Cold, Cubed
• 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tbsp Heavy Cream
• 1 Medium Baking Apple, any variety
Glaze
• 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar, Sifted
• 1-2 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
Instructions
Spiced Apple Scones
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Peel, core and quarter apple. With a hand grater or food processer, grate quartered apple pieces. Use a clean kitchen towel to squeeze excess water from grated apple and transfer to a small bowl.
- In a standard measuring cup or small bowl, add and whisk to combine the cold buttermilk, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Place wet mixture in the refrigerator until ready to use.
- In a large mixing bowl, add and whisk to combine the dry ingredients including all the spices. Using your fingertips or pastry cutter, incorporate cold butter into dry mixture until visible pea sized pieces of butter is achieved. Mix grated apple into butter-flour mixture ensuring that the grated apple is evenly distributed throughout mixture without any clumps.
- Retrieve wet mixture from the refrigerator. Pour and mix wet mixture into the dry mixture just until a soft, slight tacky dough is formed.
- Transfer dough onto a well-floured clean surface and sprinkle some additional flour on top of dough. Using your hand and a bench scrapper, shape dough into a small rectangle. With a rolling pin, roll the dough into elongated rectangle about 9” x 3”. Cut dough in half and then cut each half diagonally to end up with a total of 4 scones.
- Transfer scones onto prepared baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer for at least 30 minutes before baking. While scones are in the freezer, preheat oven to 400F. Brush the tops of scones with heavy cream and bake for 20-24 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through bake time.
- Scones are done when it has a golden brown color on the top and bottom and does not look doughy. Allow scones to cool on cooling rack before topping with glaze.
Glaze
- In a small mixing bowl, add and whisk the powdered sugar and heavy cream until a smooth glazed is achieved.
Assembly
- Lightly drizzle glaze over cooled scones. Allow glaze to set for 10-12 minutes before serving.
Mary Penn
These scones look out of this world delicious! I cannot wait to make them😋!! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
nourished endeavors
Thanks Mary❤ Let me know how it turns out and if you have any questions!