Cheese and Onion Scones
Cheese and caramelised onions have always gone together so well so I thought, why not concoct a recipe for cheese and onion scones bringing them together in a delicious breakfast treat?
Scones do have the reputation of being usually sweet, served with clotted cream and preserves, but over the years the savoury ones have also made an appearance and what better thing to add to a baked good than melty cheese?
Boring as it may sound, the idea of the “cheese and onion” combo came from crisps - these are my favourite. I’d had baked many times the delicious apple and cheddar scones from Smitten Kitchen and figured I can replace the apple with caramelised onions, what could go wrong?!
These cheese and onion scones are absolutely delicious and make for an amazing breakfast, but here I decided to serve them alongside my watermelon gazpacho, with prosciutto crisps.
These come together effortlessly, with just a few notes:
try and work the dough as little as possible. We want the gluten to not develop and make them tough and chewy. That’s why a food processor is ideal in this situation, it minimises contact and kneading time.
for the egg wash, make sure it doesn’t drip to the sides of the scones, as possible. This will prevent it from hindering the rise.
caramelising onions takes time, on a medium - low heat; at least 15 minutes. There is no way to speed this up, as upping the heat will just get them to burn. You want them to first sweat and release their water and then become beautifully golden brown.
should you not feel like caramelising onions, replace them with either raw chopped green onions (the flavour will be more herby and “green”) or with a tbsp of onion powder. I hear you can also buy fried onions at some grocery store and I think those would work quite well too. Measure with your heart :)
make sure to dust your working surface with a little flour, your dough will be sticky.
freeze the unbaked scones (without egg wash) for up to a month. Then glaze and bake directly from frozen, adding 5 minutes to the baking time.
i used beautifully nutty gruyère cheese because let’s be honest, it’s plentiful in Switzerland, but cheddar would work fantastically well, so would parmesan, grana padano, or other mature hard cheeses.
Lastly, remember these are best fresh out of the oven with a pat of butter. Plan accordingly (in fairness, they take a grand total of 40 minutes to make, out of which 15 are in the oven so it’s not a tall order).
I hope you enjoy these and do let me know what new combos you come up with. Maybe they, too, will be based on flavours of crisps :)
Cheese and Onion Scones
Ingredients
- 270 ml buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 450g flour
- 1 tsp salt
- lots of black pepper
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 170 g cold butter, cubed
- 100g hard cheese such as gruyère, cheddar, cubed
- 1 large onion, thinly sliced
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Start by caramelising the onion. In a medium pan, on a medium heat, place 1 tbsp neutral oil and add the sliced onion. This is an exercise in patience, one simply cannot make onions caramelise faster than 15-20 minutes. Cook, stirring often, until the onions slowly brown and smell delicious. Towards the end, optionally, you can add 1 tsp balsamic vinegar to enhance the caramelised flavour. Set aside to cool.
- In a food processor add the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cheese, pepper. Pulse to combine.
- Add the butter (make sure it very cold!) and pulse again until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- Add egg and buttermilk. Pulse until dough just comes together (do NOT overmix!)
- Add cooled caramelised onions. Pulse again quickly just to distribute them through the dough.
- Tip the dough onto a floured surface. Roughly shape into 2 discs with your hands.
- Cut each disc into 8 triangles.
- Place the cut scones on a baking sheet.
- Mix the egg and water. Glaze each scone with the egg wash. If possible, try to make sure the glaze doesn't drip on the sides of the scones, as this may hinder their rise.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until beautifully golden.
- Scones are best fresh from the oven with a pat of butter or accompanying a beautiful soup.
Notes
These freeze really well. You can bake them straight from frozen by adding 5 minutes to the baking time.
Should you not feel like making caramelised onions (very understandable) but are aiming for a similar vibe, replace them with 1 tbsp onion powder.