Scones are one of my favorite things to have for breakfast. All of the recipes I have for them including cutting in butter or margarine sticks. I decided to try to use the rules I found to substitute olive oil for the sticks. Looks like the rule is to use about 3/4 as much oil as the butter or margarine the recipe calls for.
I am using this Pecan Cinnamon Scones recipe as a starter. It looks good and I especially like that it has pecans in it, because I like pecans and because nuts are recommended on the MIND diet. I used all whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, which was plenty sweet. Following the rule to use 3/4 as much olive oil as butter, I used 3/8 of a cup (6 TBSP) instead of 1/2 cup. I also used regular salt and regular 1% milk instead of buttermilk.
My scones turned out great! The brown sugar and whole wheat is so good with the pecans.
They are moist yet a bit crumbly good. There is a down side, though. The calorie count with all those pecans is 372 per scone — more than I usually eat for breakfast. Bur, they have whole grains, nuts, and olive oil. I suppose they count as a “pastry or sweet” so I will have to count each as one of my four per week to get the point for avoiding pastries and sweets.
Pecan Cinnamon Scones for the MIND diet PDF version
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 6 TBSP olive oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 4 to 5 TBSP 1% milk
- 2 tsp. white sugar
- Toast the pecans in a 375 degree oven for 5 minutes, turning after each minute.
- Mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
- Whisk the egg and add the olive oil and vanilla to it.
- Gently stir the liquid into the dry ingredients just until barely mixed.
- Add 4 TBSP of the milk and the pecans.
- Mix gently as little as possible. Knead it with clean hands right in the bowl. If it doesn’t cling together well, add 1 more TBSP milk.
- Turn out onto greased baking pan and pat into a round disc about 6 to 7 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick.
- Cut into 8 wedges but don’t separate.
- Sprinkle with the white sugar
- Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.
