Jalapeño Cheddar Scones
Jalapeño Cheddar Scones
I love baking sweet treats but there are some people in the world who prefer savoury snacks (personally don’t understand). Those people will love these scones. I made them for brunch with friends and but you could have them as a snack anytime! My advice if you are making these for breakfast: make the dough the night before and store it in the fridge to roll out a bake in the morning.
As I said in my Maple Pecan Scones post, the flaky and light texture of scones comes from the process of adding butter to the dough. Read the notes in the adaptations for why a pastry cutter is necessary for making these scones.
See the photo above for a guideline of how thin to roll out the dough. They rise quite a bit to become puffy so roll out the dough to be 1/2 inch thick.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper*
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 cup butter, cold and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 packed cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 jalapeños*, finely chopped without seeds and membrane
1 tbsp. butter, melted
YIELD
13 scones
TIME
Prep - 15 minutes
Bake - 12 minutes
TOOLS
1 large bowl
Pastry cutter
Rolling pin
Round cutter or a drinking glass
Baking sheets
Silicone brush
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper, set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cayenne, and black pepper.
Scatter the cold butter pieces on top of the flour and use a pastry cutter* to create pieces of butter that are the size of peas.
Add the buttermilk and continue using the pastry cutter to form a dough. The dough should still have butter chunks and can be a bit sticky. Use your hands if needed to form a dough, but work quickly to keep your dough as cold as possible.
Mix in cheese and jalapeños.
Lightly flour a clean work surface. Roll out the dough to be 1/2 inch thick. Again work quickly and avoid handling the dough as much as possible to prevent melting the butter pieces. Use a round cutter or the top of a drinking glass to cut out scones. Gather and re-roll dough to use all of it, I made some misshapen scones with my hands that were as thin as the other ones and they turned out well.
Transfer to two baking sheets. Brush the tops with the melted butter. Bake for 12 minutes or until they are golden brown.
Serve immediately if possible. I looked online and found a recommendation for preserving scone texture by placing a paper towel at the bottom of a sealable plastic container and storing scones on top of the paper. Also see my note above about making the dough in advance for serving these for breakfast.
ADAPTATIONS
I found the cayenne and jalapeños added a perfect spice level, but I do like things a bit spicy. You can reduce the jalapeños or cayenne if you are nervous about it being too spicy.
If you don’t have a pastry cutter, you can use a fork to create the butter pieces. However, this is more challenging than using a pastry cutter to create the pea size chunks of butter. When you bake pastry, these butter chunks melt and create the flaky texture you want with a scone. This dough should not be fully blended like a cookie dough and should have visible butter chunks throughout.
Recipe adapted from Bake or Break.
