Oat Scones

Even with the balmy weather (`--2C) today, I still feel like I need warm, soft, fresh from the oven goodness. These scones are great! They are from one of my favourite cookbooks: Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison. It's like the bible of vegetarian cooking.

Oat Scones (regular or gluten free)

1 cup rolled oats, plus extra for the counter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose or whole-wheat pastry flour**** see note below for my gluten free substitution

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

7 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 egg

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk or cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

****Instead of the flour I used:

1 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup tapioca flour and 1/4 cup potato starch

and you'd never even know it was gluten free

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Mix the dry ingredients together, then cut in the butter with two knives or your fingers until coarse crumbs are formed. Beat the egg with the milk and the vanilla and stir it into the dough. Mix just enough to moisten the dry ingredients evenly. Scatter some oats on the counter and turn the dough on top of them. Pat into a circle about 1/2 inch thick, then cut into eight wedges and place each piece on the pan. Bake until nicely browned, 15 to 18 minutes. Serve warm.

P.S. I put parchment paper on a pan and just patted the dough onto it in a circle and used a knife to cut into wedges but left them as they were. When it was baked I just cut along the lines again. It seemed easier.