Sourdough Scones

I've been tweaking a recipe for sourdough scones, and it feels sufficiently different from the original to put it here. I found this recipe on Sourdough Surprises, who credits Sourdough Diva (no longer online)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of sourdough starter (about 460g)
• 1 1/2 cups of bread flour
• 1 cup of wheat pastry flour or Paleo flour
• (Optional) 2tbsp of coffee flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of Penzey's Cake Spice or Chinese 5 Spice
• 5 1/2 tablespoons of cold butter
• 1/2 cup of currants
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• Cinnamon sugar or maple sugar to sprinkle on top

Heat the oven to 400f.

Mix the flours, salt, cream of tartar, baking soda, sugar, and cake spice in a bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub it in to the mix until you have a breadcrumb texture. Mix in the currants and walnuts.

Add a cup of the sourdough starter and mix well with a fork. Add a second cup of starter, knead the dough in the bowl for a minute so it knows who's boss. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to 3/4in thick. Cut out rounds (do NOT twist the cutter, that seals the edges) and put them on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Brush the tops with milk (cow or almond, makes no difference) and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over them. Bake at 400f for 20 minutes.

You can substitute a lot of different things into this recipe. I have used dried cherries, diced orange peel, pumpkin seeds, raisins, cranberries, roasted hazelnuts, 1/4 cup of roasted cacao nibs (also from Trader Joe's), dried blueberries, whatever you like.

Do not under any circumstances use more than 2tbsp of coffee flour, because it will drown out all the other flavours.

Before you can make these, you need to get enough sourdough starter to play with. You can do this first thing in the morning or overnight, but you'll need to leave this stuff alone for at least 6 hours to do its thing.

Take a half cup of goo from your sourdough stash and put it in a big bowl with three cups of water. Add one cup of all purpose flour, and two cups of whole wheat pastry flour, mix well. You can use all the same kind of flour, I like the mix because the all-purpose seems to get processed faster than the wheat.

Replenish the stash with a half cup of all purpose flour and a half cup of water, stir well, and stick it back in the fridge.