Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Scones Recipe: To begin, dark butter makes everything better. The milk solids in brown butter are toasted, giving it a rich toasty, nutty taste that really comes through in the scones. Also, these scones are very soft and crunchy at the same time.
If you don’t trust scones because some have been dry in the past, I promise you that these and all the other scones on this blog are not dry at all! They have tiny chocolate chips inside and a brown butter glaze on top. I guess what I’m saying is that these are really tasty and you should start making them right away!
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Scones Recipe
Ingredients
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Scones
- 170 g unsalted butter (¾ c.)
- 1 egg
- 100 g buttermilk (½ c.)
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 240 g all purpose flour (2 c.)
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 40 g light brown sugar (3 tbsp.)
- 100 g mini chocolate chips (½ c. + 1 tbsp.)
Brown Butter Glaze
- 90 g powdered sugar (¾ c.)
- ⅛ tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp. brown butter
- 1 tbsp. milk
Instructions
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Scones
- Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Stir the mixture every so often until it turns amber and you can see brown spots in the butter (those are the taste bits!). Take the butter out of the heat and weigh it.
- Put 120g, or a little more than 1/2 c., of the brown butter into a bowl that can handle heat.
- Save the rest of the brown butter for the glaze. Cover the brown butter and put it in the fridge overnight if you want to make it ahead of time. Put the butter in the freezer and stir it every 5 minutes until it solidifies. This will make the process go faster.
- Mix the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a small bowl with a whisk until everything is well mixed. Cool the mix down in the fridge.
- Put the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. The brown butter should be broken up into chunks and added to the bowl.
- Cut the butter into small pieces and mix them into the dry ingredients with your fingers or a pastry cutter. In the end, the combination should look like wet sand.
- Add the wet ingredients that have been mixed into the bowl. Add the chocolate chips after you’ve mixed the ingredients together a bit. The dough should still be mixed together in the bowl.
- Move the dough to a clean work area when it no longer seems like it wants to come together. Knead the dough slowly until it comes together all the way.
- Make a 6-inch circle out of the dough by pressing it down. The scones can be frozen for 30 minutes or overnight if you lightly wrap or cover them.
- It’s time to make the scones, so heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Put parchment paper or a plastic baking mat on the bottom of a baking sheet.
- On the baking sheet, spread the scones out so that they are all eight pieces. On top of each scone, brush a little buttermilk. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Brown Butter Glaze
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Melt the reserved brown butter and mix it with the powdered sugar and salt. Add a small amount of milk at a time until you get the glaze consistency you want.
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Once the scones have cooled to room temperature, spread the glaze over them. Top with more mini chocolate chips if desired, then serve and enjoy!
Advice on how to cook
GET YOUR INGREDIENTS WEIGHED
To get the method right and get the same results every time, you need to weigh your items. If you don’t weigh your items, you might add too much or too little of them, which can mess up a recipe. I really think you should get a cooking scale if you haven’t already. This one is really cheap, and it helped me when I first started out.
DO NOT THROW THE DOUGH OR INGREDIENTS AWAY
Keeping the dough cold is the key to getting those thin layers and butter holes. If you think the butter is getting too warm while you’re making the scones, put the dough back in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes to cool it down. Also, most of my recipes say to use items that are at room temperature, but you should keep your butter, eggs, and sour cream in the fridge until you’re ready to use them.
FROST THE DOUGH BEFORE YOU BAKE IT!
I understand that having to wait is a pain. It is very important to do this step so that the scones don’t spread out too much in the oven and bake up tall! Let the dough freeze for at least an hour and up to a night before baking.
DO THE BROWN BUTTER THE EVENING BEFORE
It will take a while for the brown butter to harden. It’s best to brown the butter the day before you bake the scones. In fact, you can do this up to a week ahead of time. You’ll have a lot less work to do when you bake the cookies!
WEIGH THE BUTTER THAT IS BROWN
It’s best to weigh the brown butter, since it will be split up and used in both the glaze and the scones. For the scones, you’ll need 120g of brown butter. The rest can be used for the glaze.