Normally I would be all over making chocolate zucchini bread this time of year. (See HERE for our Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread!) I decided to make something a little different but still reminiscent of quick bread.
You can't go wrong with scones, right?
Scones are awesome.
We should strive to include scones at every meal.
*Sigh* Things would be different if I were in charge of the universe.
Triple Chocolate Zucchini Scones with
Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Drizzle
Ingredients
Salted Caramel Drizzle
4 Tbsp cream cheese, room temp
1 Tbsp butter, room temp
1 Tbsp salted caramel sauce
2 - 3 Tbsp icing sugar
Scones
4 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 small pkg (serving size 4) Jello Chocolate Pudding powder
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup butter, cold
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 cup zucchini, shredded
1/2 cup 1% milk
1/4 cup Greek yogurt, plain
2 eggs
2 Tbsp sugar
Directions
Prepare drizzle - Beat together cream cheese, butter, and caramel sauce until smooth. Beat in the icing sugar until smooth. Chill until ready to use.
Prepare scones - Preheat oven to 400. Line a large cookie sheet (or 2 small) with parchment paper, set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, cocoa, Jello pudding powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt.
Cut in butter using a pastry blender (or 2 butter knives), until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips.
In a smaller bowl, whisk together zucchini, milk, yogurt, and eggs.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients.
Stir together with a fork until stiff dough forms. You may need to add a bit more milk if you are having trouble getting the dough to come together.
Place dough on a lightly floured work surface and roll out to 1/2 inch thickness.
Fold dough in half, lengthwise, and lightly roll to 1 inch thickness. (I do this so my scones have a lovely split right in the middle of the scone and are easier to separate. You can simply roll it to 1 inch thickness to begin with and cut them out.)
Using a sharp edges cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out scones and place on prepared cookie sheet. Press together the scraps and cut out more scones. (I used a 2.5 inch cookie cutter and got approx 24 scones.)
Sprinkle the tops of the scones with the remaining 2 Tbsp of sugar.
Bake at 400 for 10 - 15 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet at the halfway mark.
Remove from oven when cooked and leave on cookie sheet for 5 minutes to cool. After 5 minutes, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.
When the scones are room temp - take the caramel cream cheese mixture from the fridge and microwave for 5 - 7 seconds. Just enough to melt a little so it is thin enough to drizzle.
Drizzle over the scones.
Serve room temp or slightly warm.
*Note - these freeze well too - with or without the drizzle.
Also, if you can't find store bought salted caramel sauce you can use regular ice cream topping caramel and add in about 1/8 tsp of salt.
From start to finish in about 30 minutes. Definitely a tasty way to use up some that zucchini coming out of the garden this time of year!
Be sure to visit these fab linky parties - Feeding Big, Memories By The Mile, Hun...What's For Dinner?, Table For Seven, New Mrs. Adventures. Anyonita Nibbles
