Oats and Carrots=Healthy-ish

This is the last recipe from the Thursday night/Friday morning baking bonanza. I was too tired to make these scones that evening, so I woke up early and rushed around like a lunatic to make them fresh in the morning. It was soooo worth it. I often times shy away from scones because I honestly don't think I like them all that much. Dry, dense, crumbly--that's the typical scone I come across and .... ick. If I wanted dry, dense and crumbly, I'd watch a British comedy.

Not a British sitcom.

These are good scone-fascimiles. Dense but light, the tiniest bit sweet, and crumbly MOIST.

Carrot Coconut Scones
adapted from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Revisited

There are multiple steps in this process. I suggest making the carrot puree first, cause it ain't just blended carrots. But first, the ingredients. * for organic ** for local!

2 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats (see, you can make these while making granola!)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 large egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup carrot puree
1 egg white, beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and position rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (see, aren't you glad you got a whole roll?)

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, oats, baking powder, salt and coconut. Add the butter, in chunks, and wash your disgusting, filthy hands before you put them in your scones. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until the butter is pea sized and the mixture becomes coarse.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, vanilla and carrot puree. Slowly pour the wet into the dry and stir just until all the dry disappears. You'll have to use your hands again to incorporate everything together, but do this as little as possible--the more you mess with it, the tougher the dough gets and you get those nasty dry crumbly icky scones discussed earlier.

The dough will probably be sticky--don't be afraid to sprinkle it with flour, and sprinkle a cutting board/countertop with flour, too.  Roll the dough up, turn it on its end, and flatten it into a disk. It should be about 1 3/4 inches high--I whipped out my tape measure and mine was more like 1 1/4 inches high, and I got some huge ass billowing scones. So do what you can.

Cut the dough into 6 or 8 wedges---I did 8, and the scones were the perfect breakfast size. 6 would be huuggeee. Whisk the egg white with 1 tablespoon of water, and then brush the egg white over the tops of the scones. Do this after you arrange the scones on the baking sheet, duh.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, inserting a toothpick at 18 mins to see if it comes out clean. Mine did. Don't overbake, or you'll get the dry/crumble conundrum.

Transfer scones to a wire rack, cool completely. Place the rack on the baking sheet with the parchment paper, so when you put on your glaze, you don't curse at yourself for getting glaze all up in your kitchen's business. Also, if you put glaze on these while they're hot, it's going to be a mess. So just be patient and WAIT until they're not hot, just gently warmed.

Coconut says, "Hi!"

For the Citrus Glaze:
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Whisk all this in a bowl. If it's too thin, add powdered sugar. Too thick, add juice. It just needs to be loose enough to drizzle  (heehee, there's a loose vagina joke here. I'm not going to share it, though.)


Quick Carrot Puree:
1 medium carrot
1/4 cup orange juice

Place the carrot, chopped into several even sized chunks, into a medium glass microwaveable bowl. Cover with a plate or microwave plate cover.

Microwave on high for up to 5 minutes to cook the carrot to fork-tender stage. Pour the juice and carrot into a food processor, blender, or into a cup for an immersion blender (my preferred method). Blend the carrot and orange until smooth, or you can try to mash it with a potato masher until lump free.

I upped the yield on this, and did 3 carrots, 3/4 cups OJ, and cooked. I needed more stuff so it could blend decently in the immersion blender. I had a hard time eliminating chunks in the food processor, so just do the best you can. No worries.