If you’re looking for ways to whole wheat pastry flour, I recommend scones — particularly, Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Scones.
Almost any type flour works for scones, but whole wheat pastry flour has a little less gluten so you can work the dough harder without making the scones tough. And then of course there’s the flavor factor. Whole wheat pastry flour adds just a slight taste of wheat without making the scones taste “health food-ish”.
Texture-wise, they are in the “crumbly and compact” category as opposed to the “fluffy and crusty”. They’re borderline cookie-like so keep that in mind. If you want fluffier and more cake-like scones, this may not be your recipe. However, if you want rich and flaky scones that travel well (I sent some to work with Todd), these are perfect.
- 240 grams (about 2 cups) whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks, European style if you have it
- 1/2 cup dark or semisweet chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup heavy cream plus extra for brushing
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste or vanilla butter & nut extract
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a heavy duty baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a bowl for about 15 seconds. Add the butter and mix with a pastry blender or your fingers until crumbly.
- Mix together the cream and vanilla and add to dry ingredients. With a heavy duty scraper, stir to make a somewhat dry dough.
- Add the chocolate chips and gently knead the dough just until it comes together. Transfer dough to a sheet of parchment or wax paper and shape into a 1 inch thick circle. It should be about 6 inches in diameter. Cut the circle into 6 or 8 wedges and arrange on the parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the wedges with a little extra cream and bake for 20 minutes or until edges are brown.
Thanks for this great recipe. I had a series of scone recipes recently, but none with whole wheat pastry flour. Time to try this!
These sound great! I have made all of the scones from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Cookbook, and our favorites were the cinnamon pecan scones, cinnamon filled scones, oat and currant scones, oat scones with orange glaze, and eggnog-oat scones with a whisky glaze, if anyone is looking for even more ideas 🙂
Yum. I miss using whole wheat pastry flour. It was one of my favorites. Love scones, too.