Chocolate and Scones... Yes Please!

I am dedicating this post to my mom.  The woman who recently told me she burnt grilled cheese and her soup.  This one is for you mom.  I hope you are successful at your next adventure in the kitchen!

This week half of the office has gone to the sunny state of Florida for work, leaving three of us in the office to fend off the cold weather.  So I thought, why not have a "party" and bake something?  So I did.  My overall plan was to make these awesome cinnamon buns, a recipe my best friend gave me.  I was getting myself all psyched up to make them and everything.  I was reading over the directions and the ingredients and suddenly realized I was missing 2 essential ingredients.  I won't tell you what they are because once I get them, I'm making those buns!  So, I had to turn to plan B.  After sorting through most of my cook books to find something that contained all of the ingredients I had, I came across something my dad had given me for Christmas.  It's a box of recipes entitled Coffee Treats.  Inside are all sorts of pastries that pair well with coffee, along with a CD you're supposed to play while making them.  I have yet to listen to the CD, but I did find a recipe to make.  Chocolate Scones.  I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out because I haven't made scones since the 8th grade.  But I thought, worst comes to worst, I'll stop at the grocery store on the way into work and pick up some cookies.  So I dove into baking.
Here is what you will need to make your own coffee sidekick, chocolate scones:

1 egg
1/2 cup of heavy cream or half-and-half (I used 1% milk and I think it tasted just fine)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 and 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1/3 cup of sugar
2 tsp. of baking powder
1/4 tsp. of salt
and
1/3 cup of cold, unsalted butter, cut into bits (I cut them by tablespoons then cut each one in quarters)

First I whisked the milk, egg, and vanilla in a bowl and set it aside. 
Then in my mixer I mixed together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt.
I then added the butter until it began to break apart into crumbs.
Once all of those ingredients were mixed together, I kept the mixer going and added the wet ingredients until it was just combined.  DON'T combine the ingredients to much or you probably won't want to eat your scones.  I also added chocolate chips, about 1/3 of a cup.  I thought it would add a little something extra to the scones.  In the end, this is what the dough should look like, semi-loose but held together.  It should have a tacky like consistency.

Once mixed, take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a well floured counter.  Make sure you really flour up your counter top.  I didn't do so well with that and the dough began to stick.  So make sure you flour up!  Fold the dough together and push out into a circle.  The circle should be between 1/2 and inch to an inch thick.  Mine was closer to the 1/2 an inch side.  Then, cut your circle into 8 pieces (kind of like a pizza pie).

Place each piece onto a greased cookie sheet, and put the sheet in a 400 degree oven for no more than 15 minutes.  The edges of each scone should be crisp, but the middle should still be soft.  When you push down in the center it should spring back.  So make sure you keep an eye on the oven.  You don't want the little guys to burn!!  Once they are finished take them out to cool, then enjoy with a nice steaming cup of coffee! 

                  


                     Enjoy!