Sometimes I forget how amazing Nutella is… Wow, seeing those words written down, I do realize how ridiculous it sounds. BECAUSE WHO COULD FORGET ABOUT NUTELLA. I don’t bake with Nutella nearly enough, so I took the opportunity this week to open a new jar and get reacquainted. Our current Baked Sunday Mornings recipe is Vanilla Bean Affogato, which just didn’t appeal to me to post on the blog. I don’t really post beverage-based recipes (except milkshakes because YUM), so I decided to go rogue and return to BAKED’s second book, Baked Explorations, for a recipe that the group made way back before I joined. I settled on Nutella Scones, which I’ve flipped past umpteen times in the Breakfast section, but never actually made. Inexplicable, I know. So I was happy to skip the affogato in favor of this brownie-meets-breakfast situation that is really more like a dessert. And let’s be clear– I have zero issues with having dessert for breakfast!
As with most scones, these came together quite easily and quickly. It’s important to keep the butter and other ingredients cold in order to produce a light and flaky-ish texture. I say “-ish” because these don’t really have the same texture as traditional scones. They are very chocolaty, and there is gooey Nutella ribboned throughout (always a good thing), hence the brownie shoutout above.
After whisking together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt), you rub in cold butter chunks until the mixture is coarse and the butter bits are about pea-sized. Mine were not super-cold by this point, so I put the whole bowl in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm up before proceeding.
You’ll next pour in a mixture of heavy cream with an egg whisked in, and mix this just until the dough comes together. I found that it was easiest to use a wooden spoon and then switch to bare hands once it was mostly dough-like. The last addition is chopped, toasted hazelnuts, which we are instructed to knead in gently in order to avoid overworking the dough. Next time I would probably add the nuts to the dry ingredients at the beginning and eliminate one round of kneading.
Once you have a fairly firm dough, flatten it into a rough rectangle, then slather it with Nutella– the best part! You’ll roll this up into a fat log, turn it onto a short end, and smush it down into a round, thus essentially creating ripples of Nutella throughout the dough. So many ripples.
There is one thing I might try differently next time so that perhaps the scones could be just a little flakier– Ovenly does a laminating technique with their scone dough that basically creates gorgeous layers of tender dough, almost like a biscuit, but unquestionably still a scone. I’m curious if it would work with this dough so that the Nutella would also be layered. Or it could be a big, gummy disaster, I’m not quite sure. Anywho, it’s not necessary at all, just a thought. Carry on.
It does get a little messy at this point, but you’ll cut the dough into wedges (I made 8) and bake them for about 18-20 minutes. (So far with my small Euro-style oven in Israel, everything seems to bake quicker than normal, and my scones baked for 15 minutes).
As I’ve discussed before, I’m a bit cursed with scones. They always seem to flop over in the oven and rarely maintain their triangular shape. I would have put these in the freezer for a bit before baking, but as I was in a hurry to take them somewhere right from the oven, I had to pop them in to bake as-is. I would not say they were pretty per se, but they were not the ugliest scones I’ve ever produced, so I’ll count that as a victory! I had only one that actually did resemble a triangle, but please go ahead and think they all looked like this– that’s cool with me. 😉
After a couple of minutes of cooling, drizzle some warm Nutella over the scones and enjoy with your favorite coffee beverage, preferably Italian, if you ask me. I quite enjoyed these, though I felt that the scones on their own needed either a touch more sugar or salt– maybe both? However, with the Nutella on top, they were just right!
As for the affogato, it did actually make a cameo in my photo shoot. I have neither ice cream nor espresso at home currently, so I schlepped my scones down the street to the local cafe and gelato shop (because dontcha know normal people do that), where I got a scoop of vanigilia over which I poured a shot of espresso, which I’d spiked with vanilla bean paste. I happily grubbed on a scone and tasted some affogato (though admittedly most of it sat and melted) while editing photos. A relaxing time was had. 🙂
If you’d like to give these Nutella Scones a whirl, head to the wayback machine of Baked Sunday Mornings for the recipe, and take a look at the other bakers’ work. And if you’re like me when the scones are all gone, maybe just eat the rest of the Nutella with a spoon from the jar… 😉
© Dafna Adler & Stellina Sweets, 2018.
