I love when I find an unexpectedly exceptional recipe among the family collection. I had a lot of hopes for these sourdough scones (the recipe is in my mother’s handwriting) because my comfort food, growing up, was her (regular) scones. Alas, I did not love her sourdough scone recipe – no butter!? No sugar? yikes.

I adapted the recipe to make it more like a traditional scone and then added chocolate chips. Because why not? These are comfort food +++

Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup Earth Balance (cold)
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup sour soy milk
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Yield: 16 large scones.

Preheat oven to 400^o

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. With a pastry cutter, cut in the Earth Balance until it becomes relatively consistent pea-sized crumbs.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter, eggs, vanilla and sour soy milk. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture, adding the chocolate chips if using, then stir to bring the dough together (it will be shaggy).

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and, using your hands, shape into two wheel-shaped rounds approx. 8” wide. Cut each round into 8 triangles. Arrange the wedged on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving at least 1” between.

Lightly brush each scone with soy milk and then sprinkle coarse sugar on top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are starting to turn golden brown.

Let cool on the baking sheet 10 minutes before eating.