Monday, September 15, 2014

Triple Chocolate Zucchini Scones with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Drizzle


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!
 
 

1 comment:

  1. I'm a fool for anything with caramel cream cheese-this looks incredible! Thank you so much for linking up at Tasty Tuesday! Your recipe has been pinned to the Tasty Tuesday Pinterest board! Please join us again this week!

    ReplyDelete