The finished product…crunchy and creamy with sweet and tart cranberries

As of right now, I don’t follow a strict gluten-free lifestyle. But I’m beginning to wonder if I should….

Gluten. Oh gluten. This was going to be my year. The year I FINALLY successfully  gave something up for Lent. After hearing a whole slew of bad press about this peculiar protein, I decided to make that my target. I was going to give up gluten for forty days. Welp, here we are, the week before Easter and I can officially say I epically failed. Epically. Like 4 days into it. I’ve eaten more glutenous foods since Ash Wednesday (start of Lent) than I’ve eaten in the past 6 months. No joke. WHY does that always happen???? That is why diets don’t work. When you are fixated on cutting something out, you eat it more often and in greater quantity- or maybe that’s just me, and my lack of dietary will power.

Gluten is one of those tricky things- it’s in baked goods, pastas, breads- it’s basically the building block of every bad-for-you food out there. It’s linked to all sorts of inflammatory diseases, weight gain, diabetes, etc. So there are plenty of reasons why I should give it up. But I love pizza. And Brownies. And French bread with cheese..mmm…

So, I was walking around Trader Joe’s the other day and I came across a new item- gluten free baking mix. I’ve tried it in a few different recipes: devil’s food cake, brownies, pound cake, and it was just so-so. I didn’t love it. I barely liked it. I almost gave up on it, until now…

Scones are essentially the same thing as biscuits and Irish Soda Bread. In fact, Irish soda bread is one giant scone. That’s how I made this recipe. As one giant scone, following a soda bread recipe, then cut it into triangles once baked. I added lots of lemon zest, craisins and pecans and used buttermilk and cream cheese in the batter.

This is what it looks like fresh out of the oven. Notice the lemon zest, nuts, and cranberries…yum

I used a lot of almond meal in the batter, which makes a healthy, hearty breakfast… The best part is the cream cheese in the batter, instead of butter.

Close up of the fruit and nut filled scone…perfect with a hot cup of coffee or tea for breakfast.

Gluten Free Lemon Cranberry Scones

1 2/3 c. gluten free baking mix plus 1/3 c. almond meal

3 tbsp. sugar in the raw (turbinado sugar)

1 lemon, zested

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons cream cheese, chilled, cut into cubes

1 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup craisins

1/3 cup pecans, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In large bowl whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, lemon zest and baking soda to blend. Add the cream cheese. Using a pastry cutter, blend until coarse meal forms.
3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour buttermilk in the well, and with a fork gradually cut in the dry ingredients with craisins and nuts to blend.
4. Turn dough out onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Using floured hands, shape dough into ball. Doesn’t have to be perfect.
5. Bake bread until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Transfer to rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Crispy and golden brown on top

PS: For those of you following a gluten free, dairy free diet, you can sub chilled (hard) coconut oil for the cream cheese and almond milk for the buttermilk. Just as delicious. Just make sure the almond milk is not sweetened already, or you will end up with REALLY sweet scones. 🙂