After drooling over all the lovely bakes on the Comic Relief Great British Bake Off the other day I was itching to bake some scones.  The scones that really caught my eye were some mouthwatering sounding chocolate and orange ones. Now I have baked chocolate and orange muffins, cupcakes or cookies before but hever attempted to put chocolate in a scone. To me I always associate scones with dried fruit or making plain ones to have fruit and cream with.

After GBBO had been on I was looking through my Twitter feed and noticed that Jo Wheatley said if you wanted to make the chocolate and orange scones, her recipe in her Passion For Baking book would be ideal. This recipe is for cranberry and orange scones, another delicious sounding combination.  As I have Jo’s book and love using it all the time I was keen to use her recipe as they always work for me and give fab results.

On Friday I had a whole day off.  For the past few months I have been working on a Friday morning but as from last week I am now back to having a full Friday off. This means I can take on some more orders or do more stalls for the weekend but this last week I thought I would go shopping in Northallerton in the morning then back to walk the dog before doing some family baking.

I decided I wanted to make the chocolate and orange scones as they would be quick and easy to prepare before the children came back from school.  I used a packet of dark chocolate chips for quickness.

Once I had weighed out all the ingredients I started on the scones.

I sieved self raising flour, cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda and caster sugar together and combined them in a large bowl. After this I rubbed in some unsalted butter, followed by the zest and juice of an orange.  Once this was done I began to combine the scone dough along with the chocolate chips. It was a little dry so I added a little milk to the mixture.

I did not need to roll the dough out much as I like really chunky, thick scones. I only rerolled out the dough when strictly necessary.  Once this was done the scones were placed onto baking trays lined with baking parchment.

I brushed the scones with beaten egg yolk, followed by a sprinkling of brown sugar on the top. I did not have any demerara sugar left so I used light brown soft sugar instead. I hoped it wouldn’t make a difference.

The scones baking was the most gorgeous smell ever. I found it unbearable to stay in the kitchen when they were in the oven so I went upstairs to put some laundry away.

I am ashamed to say I scoffed one of the scones when it had just come out of the oven. The chocolate was warm but not melted, the scones didn’t need cutting and eating with butter or jam, they were perfect on their own.

I can honestly say this recipe was a joy to bake as with all Jo’s other recipes and I can’t wait to bake these scones again.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx