JACKPOT bakes Vegan Blueberry Spelt Scones

Hello all!

Mid week! Getting closer to the weekend…hopefully this Wednesday goes by quickly so it’s one day closer to enjoying the weekend!

I’ve always loved scones for their lovely crumbly yet soft texture and I always look forward to high tea knowing that I will get to eat some scones. I have always been a fan of just the plain scones never being a fan of the scones with sultanas or raisins in them (yes I have an aversion to anything with sultanas or raisins for some reason) and I find that eating them simply with jam is more than satisfying for me. However, scones are usually rather unhealthy with the amount of butter used to make them so usually eating a scone for me is a big treat.

I wanted to bake some vegan scones over the weekend so I searched through various recipes and found one from Babycakes NYC for Vegan Blueberry Scones (http://www.babycakesnyc.com/). I was looking for a recipe where it did not use butter, was vegan, dairy free and relatively healthy. I was in luck too as I had some blueberries that were uneaten still sitting in my fridge. The flavours worked wonderfully together and I loved the fact that they actually tasted like a scone but much much healthier. I loved the use of agave nectar to sweeten the scone and the blueberries added a nice texture to the scone. The scones were really light and soft that I felt like I was eating a cloud (if I knew what a cloud tasted like ;P) and with each bite you got a bit of the blueberries in it. I decided to mash my blueberries so that you could taste the blueberries throughout the whole scone. I’m definitely making these again and perhaps with raspberries next time when I can get my hands on some. You don’t need to add any jam or cream because the scone itself is already so flavourful with the bursts of blueberries in your mouth along with the sweetness from the agave nectar.

So here’s the recipe…

Vegan Blueberry Spelt Scones (Adapted from Babycakes NYC – recipe can be found here: http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=59&catId=11)

Ingredients:

2 cups of wholemeal spelt flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
a pinch of salt
1/3 cup of coconut oil
1/3 cup of agave nectar (plus a little bit more for brushing on the top of the scone) – I might decrease this next time to 1/4 cup as I found the scones a bit too sweet)
1/4 cup of cold water
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries (I mashed mine but you can keep them whole)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Line a baking tray with baking/parchment paper and set aside.
Combine your dry ingredients together: flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and mix.
Add in the coconut oil, agave nectar, cold water and vanilla extract and combine being careful not to overmix the batter.
Fold in the blueberries gently into the mixture.
Use an ice cream scoop or a large spoon and carefully take tablespoons full of the batter and drop them onto the baking sheet to form a biscuit type shape for your scones or whatever shape you want your scones to look like.
Bake in the oven for 8 minutes.
Remove from the oven and gently brush the tops of each scone with a bit of agave nectar. Place the tray back into the oven and continue to bake the scones for another 2-4 minutes or until the scone has browned nicely.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy and try not to eat them all at once!

The best bit about this recipe is that you only use one bowl and there are not too many ingredients. Also the baking time is quick so you can make these on the day you want to eat them. I had to stop myself from eating the whole batch as I was just so surprised at how well they turned out ;P