Closest thing to a Walnut Crunch.

 Good things come from experiments! A walnut crunch Sconut for example.

Here we have a would be chocolate scone that has turned into a little walnut delight. I cannot call it a scone or a walnut chrunch as I believe Tim Horton's has the rights to it so we can call it a Sconut. 

Half scone and half walnut crunch donut. I had a chocolate scone from Cobs Bakery and wanted to make one. When just substituting 1/4 of the flour with cocoa, I found the chocolate scone too dry and not sweet enough. After uping the sugar, butterand creams then trying again it dawned on me it tasted much like the beloved walnut crunch Tim Horton's no longer sells. I added a full cup of chopped lightly toasted walnuts and put a glaze on top and voila! We have a copycat!

Here is the recipe:

Chocolate Walnut Scones  

Preheat to 425F or 218C

All Purpose Flour                                                              265 gm

Cocoa    Sifted                                                                   85 gm

Espresso Coffee                                                                30 gm

Granulated sugar                                                               100 gm

Baking Powder                                                                  12 gm

Baking Soda                                                                       4 gm

Table Salt                                                                            6 gm     

Unsalted Cold Butter  1cm cubes                                    100 gm

Heavy Whipping Cream                                                    130 gm

Coffee Cream                                                                     130 gm

Large egg                                                                            1

Vanilla                                                                                6ml or 1 tsp

Walnuts chopped plus some for decorating                       full cup

See below for Glaze covering

Mix together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, cocoa and coffee with a whisk.

Use a pastry blender to incorporate the butter. Otherwise you should wear gloves if you prefer to rub in the butter because the cocoa is messy.  It should resemble pea size or smaller pieces of butter. Add the cooled chopped walnuts at this point and ensure evenly distributed.

 Whisk the creams,(I first made with 260gm of heavy cream and that was good too) egg and vanilla then make a well in the dry and add all the wet. Use a spatula to incorporate the wet and dry. Don’t over mix. Knead the dough about 5-6 times. At this point you may shape into a disc and cut out 8 wedges or shape into a square about 10x10 and cut out 16 smaller squares.  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

 

 For 8 wedges bake 425F for 14 minutes turning baking sheet at 7 mins or for the smaller squares bake 12 minutes turning at the 6 minute mark.

For the glaze

Icing sugar                 175-185 gms

Boiling water            25-35 mls 

Add boiling water to the icing sugar and stir until it is not lumpy. Apply to semi warm sconut with a pastry brush. Cool and enjoy.

For the little squirt of ganache to hold the walnut on - simply measure equal amounts of heavy whipping cream and semisweet chocolate chips. Probably only need 1/2 cup of each. Warm the whipping cream to a simmer and remove from the stove and pour directly over the chocolate. Let is sit a few minutes and stir. It will be a lovely pourable chocolate. Work quickly before it sets.

Dog Wisdom, it is okay to love humans like you love your dog. The world might be a better place. Hmm maybe if you loved the world like you love your dog the world would also be in a better place.