Maple Walnut Scones

People often ask me if I miss living in Canada. I’ve been living in Ireland now for almost five years. I have three great kids, a house we’re fixing up, a big garden (and more gardens planned), a small business and lots of friends and family milling around.

So yeah, it’s safe to say I’m usually too busy to be feeling homesick for Canada. That said, I recently got my kids their Canadian citizenship and, this year being Canada’s 150th birthday (if you’re First Nations, though, I should add that Canada is thousands of years older), I started feeling a bit nostalgic with all the celebrations and activities posted all over my social media streams.

Canada Day is July 1st, so it’s already happened. I didn’t do anything on the day to celebrate. Sometimes I host barbecues, bake a cake and have my friends over for Canada Day, but this year – having just had a baby – I wasn’t really feeling it. Too much, too soon.

But I can’t say Canada hasn’t been on my mind lately. So while I don’t miss living in Canada, there are a few things about Canada (or just Cape Breton, really) I miss in general:

1. Lobster season: May to July in Cape Breton. Lobsters everywhere you look. Lobster boil dinners at every small community hall. Lobsters being sold right from the boat. I love lobster, and I really miss eating it when it’s at its best. That also goes for mussels, scallops, haddock, salmon, chowder… and the list goes on. I know Ireland is surrounded by ocean, but there isn’t great seafood in landlocked Tipperary!
2. The beach: Cape Breton has so many gorgeous beaches. By July the water is warm enough to swim, the sand is golden and fine-textured and the beaches are relatively isolated. I love Irish beaches, but find the water is usually a bit too cold and most beaches a bit too crowded.
   

   

   
3. The restaurants: I love lobster and seafood. I love the places that prepare these foods as well. The Rusty Anchor in Pleasant Bay (where I once had some decadent lobster poutine with a cold beer; one of my most favourite meals), The Dancing Goat in Margaree, The Herring Choker in Nyanza, Charlene’s Bayside in Whycocomagh, The Bite House in Big Baddeck – all of these places make amazing Cape Breton food and deserve all of the accolades. I miss these places.
4. My friends and family: Obvs. I love and miss my *very large* extended family. Aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephew, brothers – I miss them all.
5. The weather: in summer, it’s warm enough to swim in the river and in the ocean almost every day. On the East Coast, though, it’s not as hot as it would be elsewhere in Canada. We have the ocean to keep the temperature moderate (like, 35°C and under). A great deal warmer and sunnier than an Irish summer, but still comfortable (I don’t miss black flies and mosquitos, though).
6. Wild Blueberries and good Maple Syrup: I miss these things very much. The fruit in Ireland is lovely, but the blueberries here don’t compare to the blueberries in Cape Breton.
7. Canadian beer and wine: in Nova Scotia there is a wine appellation called Tidal Bay. It’s located close to where I went to university. The wine is gorgeous. Once, a sparkling wine called (Benjamin Bridge) Nova 7 beat out actual, expensive champagne at a tasting I attented in Toronto. It’s that good. The beer in Ireland is great, so I don’t miss Canadian beer that much; just certain kinds.
8. Homestyle baking: I know I do a lot of Cape Breton-style baking here in Ireland, but I miss other people’s baking. Namely from the cafes I mentioned previously, my aunties and older people from around my community.

Speaking of homestyle baking, I especially love East Coast scones. Large, triangular, sweet with a crunchy sugar or glazed topping, scones in Cape Breton are indulgent – often made for sharing – and perfect with a cup of strong tea.

I whipped up these maple walnut scones with another nostalgic food in mind – ice cream! I love the ice cream at home. It’s not soft serve like a 99 here in Ireland, it’s hard and comes in a million and a half flavours; one of my favourites being maple walnut.

No need for butter and jam on these scones. The glaze is thick enough to ensure the right amount of sweetness in each bite, and the walnuts are toasted in the oven and then soaked in maple syrup. Perhaps most importantly, the flavour is nostalgic enough to get me through to my next visit home.

Maple Walnut Scones

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups/375g Plain Flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup/60g light brown sugar

1/2 cup/125g cold butter, cubed

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup/250ml cold buttermilk

For the glaze:

2 cups/500g Icing Sugar

1 tsp vanilla or maple extract

3 Tbsp good quality maple syrup

Splash of heavy cream

Toasted walnuts, soaked in maple syrup

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F). Line one or two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cold, cubed butter.
• Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut/rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the centre of the butter/dry ingredient mixture.
• In a large measuring cup, measure out the buttermilk, then add the egg and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Add the wet ingredients to the well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon or just using your hands (your best pastry tool!) mix the wet into the dry until just combined (mixture should be on the wet side – if it’s dry and crumbly add more buttermilk!).
• On a lightly floured surface, turn the dough out and knead lightly for one minute. Form into a ball and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
• Using more flour for dusting and a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a thick rectangle (you want to get 8-10 scones out of this dough at most). At least 1.5 inches thick.
• Cut the rectangle into 8-10 smaller rectangles or triangles. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops with milk and sprinkle a bit of sugar over each scone.
• Bake the scones for 20-ish minutes. Let cool slightly on a rack.
• Make the glaze: in a mixing bowl, combine the icing sugar, maple syrup, maple extract (or vanilla) and about a tablespoon of heavy cream. You want the glaze to be thick, but still be able to drizzle it over the scones. If the glaze is too thick for your liking, loosen it up with a bit more cream.
• Dunk the tops of each scone in the glaze, or spoon the glaze over each scone allowing the excess to drip down the sides. Top with toasted maple walnuts. Allow glaze to set slightly before eating (if you can wait that long).
• The scones will keep no longer than two days, so make sure you eat them right away!

 

Maple, Blueberry & Lemon Scones

I’m always on the lookout for a good scone. When I say scone, I mean the type of scone you get in Canada – large, triangular, sweet, biscuit-style pastries laden with berries and flavourings, then sprinkled with sugar before baking or a glaze after. The perfect scone is crumbly, sweet (but not too sweet) and stodgy. It goes well with a hot cup of tea and, if un-glazed, sliced in half with a smear of fresh butter.

In Ireland I’ve already gotten into trouble with my food terminology. A biscuit is not a cookie; a scone is not a biscuit. Biscuits, to me, are similar to scones but much less sweet and not as large. A scone may be prepared in a similar way, but it involves an egg (something I’d never put in a biscuit), a bit more sugar and berries or sweet flavourings (cranberry scones with almond are a lovely flavour combination; if you’re ever in Cape Breton you can get them at The Dancing Goat in Margaree).

Biscuits are something we eat with seafood chowder or baked beans back home. Biscuits here, of course, are cookies (but not all cookies – for example, a chocolate chip cookie would not be considered a biscuit here, according to my in-laws).

Can you sense my confusion? Don’t even get me started on poitín and poutine.

Anyway, yesterday I had a craving for a really good scone to have with tea after dinner. I had some blueberries so decided to make lemon-blueberry scones with a maple glaze. I made these scones a bit smaller than I normally would, just for portion control purposes (it’s only me and Patrick eating them – my Mom comes next week so we’ll at least have some help then). This recipe makes a moist, crumbly, sweet scone. You can drizzle them with the glaze or leave it out entirely – they are sweet enough on their own.

This recipe will make 8 large scones or 16 small.

Maple, Blueberry & Lemon Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups AP Flour

3 Tbsp white sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup cold, cubed butter

Zest of one lemon

1 cup fresh blueberries

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp room temperature butter

1-2 Tbsp milk

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (200 degrees Celsius, no fan). Line a baking tray with parchment.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Add the cubed, cold butter and rub into the flour mixture until the butter is fully incorporated and the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
• Add the blueberries and lemon zest to the bowl. Mix briefly to combine. Make a well in the centre of the flour/butter/blueberry mixture.
• In a measuring cup or small bowl, whisk the egg and buttermilk together until combined. Pour into the flour/butter/blueberry mixture and mix with a wooden spoon/spatula until just combined (do not over mix!).
• Pour contents of the bowl onto a well floured surface and knead a few times (the dough will be sticky so keeping your surface well-floured is essential). Shape the dough into a rectangle, making sure the dough is rolled out to about 1 1/2 inch thickness.
• With a floured knife, cut the rectangle in half, then cut each piece in half again. Cut the four pieces on the diagonal to create 8 triangular scones. Transfer the scones to the lined baking sheet.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes until the scones are golden brown (if you’re not using glaze, lightly brush with milk or cream and lightly sprinkle with sugar before baking).
• Make the glaze: combine the confectioner’s sugar, butter and maple syrup until well mixed. While mixing with a hand blender, slowly drizzle the milk until your desired consistency is reached. When the scones have cooled, drizzle the tops with the maple glaze.