gluten-free raspberry & coconut scone recipe, rainy days and playdough ants…

A few days ago on one of those lovely New Zealand winter days where the rain persists for 99% of the day, the kids and I had to get pretty creative to keep entertained. We played “faeries and princesses”, Ada’s favourite. We dressed up and danced to Michael Jackson. We put our gumboots on and trudged around in the backyard in the teeny break in the weather, Kye’s favourite. The kids rode their bikes on the deck, Ada made an entire army of play dough ants, and I made scones.

After my last post about Kefir, a good friend of mine commented on how she had made honey Kefir scones, since then I haven’t been able to get scones out of my head!!!! It’s been about 5 or more years since I’ve made scones. I used to make them every morning at a cafe I worked at, but since going gluten-free I’ve never quiet had the urge to try them out, oh no actually, I lie. I did make some savoury ones many years ago, just after Ada was born I think. Back when I was a gluten-free novice and didn’t even know about xanthan gum. Yep, I remember now, all I wanted was to have a little something to go with a pot of soup that was bubbling away on the stove. I was too tight to fork out for (expensive) gluten-free bread, and because it was only me that was eating gluten-free (Ada was a baby and Kye was not even a twinkle in my eye at that stage) I decided I would whip up a quick batch of gluten-free scones…..I’m not sure if I used a recipe, adapted it from a wheat recipe or what, but I do remember the hideous crumbly rocks that resulted.

A lot has changed since then, and my new-found understanding of gluten-free cooking meant that these here scones were going to work out just fine. I added some coconut and (frozen) raspberries to add to the flavour, and was thinking that if all else fails and they turn out to be rocks at least they will taste yum! I needn’t have worried, the texture of these scones are easily as good as I remember wheat scones being. Even Si, who rarely likes my gluten-free cooking, loved them! That’s huge.

You could add any berry you have, boysenberries would be nice, as would blueberries. Blueberries would probably be easier to work with as they stay in one nice little ball, the raspberries crumbled and broke up in the mix not that it tasted any different. Or you could omit the coconut and berries altogether and go for a more traditional date and orange (chopped dates with some orange zest) or lemon (zest) or go a little cafe trendy and add other dried fruits such as craisin (dried cranberries) with white or dark chocolate? The possibilities are endless, go play.

I know these are not dairy-free, like I’ve said before we are mostly dairy-free. Cream and a little butter every now and then doesn’t seem to be a problem for us. But if you are strictly dairy-free, just use margarine in place of the butter and use soy milk/coconut milk in place of the yoghurt/kefir/buttermilk. I love scones with jam and cream and was always the one in our family to fight over who gets to lick the beater after whipping cream! Lucky for me Si is not such a fan so Ada and I can have one each when Kye’s not looking!

raspberry and coconut scone recipe
These scones are gluten-free and can be adapted to be dairy-free too, (see notes above). I love raspberry jam with scones, but use whatever you like. These are best eaten straight from the oven, or on the day they are made. But we had a few left the next day that went down just a quickly! Makes 12-15 small scones.

• 2 3/4 (330g) cups fine brown rice flour 
• 1/2 cup (50g) tapioca flour
• 4 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
• 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons raw cane sugar
• 110 g (4 oz) butter, cut into small cubes or grated
• 1/3 cup (30g) desiccated coconut
• 2 eggs
• 125-175 ml natural yoghurt, kefir or buttermilk (I used kefir)
• 1 cup raspberries (or other berries, fresh, frozen or 1/2 cup if using dried)
• jam and freshly whipped cream, to serve

Preheat oven to 210 C/415 F. Place all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a food processor, add cubed butter and pulse until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs (or grate the butter and rub into the dry ingredients by hand). Tip flour mix into a medium bowl and add the coconut. Whisk eggs and yoghurt (or kefir/buttermilk) together. Make a well in the middle of the flour mix and add the egg mix. Gently mix to form and soft dough adding more yoghurt/kefir/buttermilk if needed (I use my hands to do this, but by all means use a spoon, fork or blunt knife). Add the berries and ever so gently fold them in (they will get more mixed in as you roll the dough out anyway).

Turn dough out onto a rice-floured bench and knead super lightly to just bring the dough together. Sprinkle with a little more rice flour and gently roll out with a rolling-pin to about 2.5 cm/1 inch thick. Stamp out circles of dough using a cookie cutter or improvise like I did and use a small up-turned glass. Cut as many as you can, then gently press together remaining dough and cut out the rest.

Place onto a greased baking tray, and lightly brush the tops with a little egg wash (I just use the little bit left in the bowl from the egg and kefir mix). Bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

To serve, break apart, slather with jam and dollop on plenty of softly whipped cream.