Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones

This is another pinterest find, tried and well and truly tested by yours truly at this point.  I love the idea of forming the scone dough into a round and simply marking out your portions, no mess, no waste and certainly no over worked dough resulting in tough baked scones ... and they taste mighty fine too ;0)

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones
150ml cold buttermilk
50g vanilla caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
280g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
45g chilled butter, cut into small pieces
110g chocolate chips of your choice, I used milk chocolate
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Combine the buttermilk, caster sugar, vanilla extract and egg in a medium bowl, stirring with a balloon whisk.  Use a little extra flour to flour a baking tray or sheet.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl, again stirring with a balloon whisk.  Cut in the butter, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs - I did this step in the food processor to be honest!  Fold in the chocolate chips and then add the milk mixture, stirring just until moist.

Place the dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly four times with floured hands - floured hands is important, don't skip this step like I did!  Form the dough into a circle roughly 20cm on the baking tray, you are aiming for the dough to be about 2.5cm thick.  Using a sharp knife cut the dough into 12 wedges, cutting them all the way through.

Brush the egg white over the dough and sprinkle generously but evenly with the caster sugar.  Bake for 18-20 mins or until the scones are golden brown.  Best served warm but also very good when cool.

Makes 12 scones
Taken from Skinnytaste.com