Banana Scones are a hard nut to crack, so to speak. You know me – I get a chuckle out of food puns…….. Ok so, no one else gets that this is funny to me. (You know, banana bread has nuts in it? So, nuts, bananas……..never mind)
Anyway, I have a surplus of overripe bananas sitting here and so, even though I know my kids don’t love banana scones, I decided to go to work on them this morning. Overripe bananas pose a particularly difficult problem in the scone genré, as they add a great deal of moisture to the batter and so, the combination of dry and wet has to be just so.
We don’t want a banana muffin or bread texture here. We want really good loft – which is the biggest challenge – as bananas weigh down the batter. You want tender and light scones with good banana flavor and with a nice crunchy outside. Also, the flavor needs to be good – bright with banana but with some good anchors.
Here is what I came up with:
BANANA-PECAN SCONES
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
zest of one half large navel orange
6 tblsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 overripe bananas mashed
generous 2/3 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 425 convection. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In the bowl of food processor, whir together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg sugar and orange zest. Add the butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal – about 8 times. Remove mixture to a low wide bowl. Make a well in center. In a large mixing cup whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, vanilla and eggs. Pour about 2/3 of the mixture into the center of the dry ingredients. With a dough scraper, begin to work the dry ingredients into the wet. Add more wet as you see the mixture coming together if needed. You are looking for a relatively dry result here as you are going to add the bananas and it is going to get much wetter. Keep it on the dryer side – you can always add more of the wet. Add the mashed bananas and work in with the dough scraper. This dough will be more wet than other scone doughs – it is ok. Move the dough to the baking sheet with your dough scraper. Pat out to a 9″round. If it is too wet, flour your hands. Brush top with egg wash and sprinkle with muscavado sugar. Cut into 8 wedges with a bench scraper. Bake for 20 minutes or until well browned and crunchy on top. With a serrated knife, separate the scones gently and return to oven for 1 minute or until the centers are baked through. Enjoy! P.S. next time I would add a full cup of pecans! I would say the loft on these was good, not great – but you have to be careful with leaveners, don’t you….. I’ll tinker with this.
from the garden this morning:
