Cornbread Scones
I love cornbread. I’m crazy about biscuits. And I adore scones, which is a nothing but fancified biscuit, made with cream instead of milk (or buttermilk), and butter instead of the stuff in the blue can, which my mother still swears by.
The other weekend, I was in the mood for pinto beans but settling on black beans instead, and I wanted cornbread, but I wanted to do something different with it. Then it hit me. Why not mash them all up together and make a cornbread biscuit scone, which I’m just going to call “cornbread scone” to make it easier to remember.
I don’t know why I’ve not thought of this before.
Genius. If I do say so myself.
Some scone people like to cut out their scones with cutesy scalloped-edge cutters or just the plain old biscuit ones, but I am not one of them. I am from the make-a-big-dough-circle-and-slice-triangles school of scones. They are easier this way. Faster. And as anyone who knows me knows, I am both.
Cooking, people! I’m talking about cooking. Please.
To jazz things up a bit, I also added some green chiles (canned, sadly, but I’ll be in New Mexico soon enough to make up for this culinary misstep) along with some cheddar, but you don’t have to if you’d rather just plain ones, because they are anything but. They are a hybrid that works as either, or both. I slathered mine with honey just like I do with cornbread…and biscuits…and very often, scones, too.
Great with beans, pinto or otherwise, or with soup, as I plan to do this week. They’ll split in half and toast up just fine, just like the biscuits that Mom always sent me home with. I always liked her biscuits split, toasted, and buttered and honeyed up the next day even better than I did on the first round. I don’t really know why, but maybe it had something to do with taking a little bit of Mom home with me…and that alone was what made them more special.
Cornbread Scones
Makes 8
- 1 ½ cups of corn meal
- 1 cup/125 grams of flour
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of baking powder
- ½ teaspoon of sea salt
- 4 tablespoons of very cold butter, cut into small pieces
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- ⅓ cup/80 ml of cream
- ½ cup/50 grams of shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 ounces/55 grams of chopped green chiles (I used canned but please use fresh roasted Hatch chiles if you can get your hands on some)
1. Preheat your oven to 425°F/220°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Toss the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl in your food processor, and pulse a time or two to combine.
3. Add your cold butter cubes and pulse three or four times to cut in the butter (or if you’re doing this by hand with a pastry cutter, like my mom prefers, work quickly so the butter doesn’t warm up). Be careful not to overdo here; mix just until the butter’s the size of pebbles.
4. Pour in the beaten eggs, cream, cheese, and green chiles, and pulse a few more times or mix quickly by hand just until the dough’s moistened — it’ll still be crumbly, which is what you want. Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and form a round disc about 1 1/2 inches/3.8 cm thick. Slice into 8 triangles and place on the parchment paper, leaving about 2 inches/5 cm in between each scone. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until browned on top and on the bottom. Serve warm (I like mine with salty butter), at room temperature, or sliced and toasted as leftovers.
