Maple Pecan Scones

As might be imagined, my cooking, baking, cleaning, dish washing, general tasks of daily living productivity took a serious hit while I was studying for Step 1. It's not so much that I had no desire as that I lacked the time and energy. The Husband Unit gave me The Pioneer Woman Cooks as a sort of congratulations on finishing up classes surprise gift way back in February/March. As he can attest to, I look at her website all the time and had been wanting her cookbook for quite awhile. While I was studying, I would occasionally flip through the book while I was taking a break (for lunch, for example) and picked out some recipes that I wanted to try sooner rather than later. There is a recipe in there fore maple pecan scones that I have been wanting to make for about two months now and this weekend I finally made it (and used the cute little mini-scone pan I got for my birthday, too). It was definitely worth the wait.

 The scones are delicious on their own, but the maple icing is, well, the icing on the cake...or rather scone.

 Yes, I do love sloths in case that wasn't obvious....

but don't worry, I'm only like Kristen Bell about puppies.

Maple Pecan Scones

From The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl

 Pecan Scones

• 3 c AP flour
• 1/3 c sugar
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt (leave it out or use less if using salted butter)
• 2 sticks butter, chilled
• 1/4 c pecans, chopped
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup heavy cream (I used half & half)

 1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Cut butter into the flour mix with a pastry blender (or I suppose you could use a food processor) until a crumbly mixture is achieved. 
3. Finely chop the pecans and stir into the flour mixture.
4. In a small bowl/measuring dish, mix the egg & cream together. Add this to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
5. Either prepare the dough the usual way for scones (gently roll it out to 3/4 in thickness and cut into shape) or press the dough gently into a scone pan. Bake for 22-26 min or until just barely starting to brown. I used a mini-scone pan and only ended up baking mine for 10-12 min.


Maple Icing
1/2 batch

• 1/2 lb powdered sugar
• 1/8 c milk
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• a tad bit of coffee
• dash of salt
• 1 tsp maple flavoring/extract

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth. Pour over completely cooled scones and allow to set for several minutes.