Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones #BreadBakers

Grated butter and cheese add little pockets of flavor and flakiness to these Guinness Cheddar Scones. They are perfect for breakfast or snack time and go great with soup!

I’ve baked with stout quite a few times and love how much depth and flavor a dark brew adds to any batter or dough. For example, check out my mocha stout brownies, London Porter cake and oatmeal stout loaf, just to name a few. All lovely! 

If there is any product more iconically Irish then Guinness Stout, I don’t know what it would be. Anytime Irish teams are playing in a tournament, ubiquitous Guinness shows up as a sponsor. When our host for this month’s Bread Bakers chose Irish bread as our theme for March, I knew I wanted to use Guinness in the recipe. 

NOTE: Start this recipe far enough in advance of when you've like to serve them to leave plenty of time for freezing the scones before baking. Depending on your freezer, a couple of hours ought to do it. 

Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones

This recipe is adapted from Coley Cooks. It’s been a while since I saved it so the author has updated the post name and the URL and these are now called biscuits, which I find very odd for an Irish recipe. Back when I found it, they were called, quite rightly, Irish scones with a URL to match.  Whatever you call them, bake these. They got four thumbs up from my family!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups or 312g flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 cup or 240ml Guinness, cold

1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, FROZEN, plus 2 tablespoons (28g), melted

7 oz or 200g mature cheddar or extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Method

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

Using a box grater, grate the frozen butter, then quickly transfer it to the flour mixture and use a fork to gently mix and coat all the butter pieces with flour. 

Add the grated cheese and mix to combine, being sure to coat all pieces with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the Dijon mustard and Guinness.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beer mixture.

Carefully mix until it forms a shaggy dough.  Do not overmix. 

Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface, then roll out into a long strip about 7x14 in or 18x36cm.

Fold one side half way up, adding in any loose bits.

Then fold the other side over top, like a letter.

 

Rotate the dough 90 degrees, roll out and repeat the two letter folds again. Rotate again and fold for the final two times.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in or 1 cm thick. Cut the scones out with a cutter and place them on a pan lined with baking parchment.  

Roll the dough out again and cut scones until you run out of dough. As you can see, I got 14 scones out of my dough.

Place the baking pan in the freezer. Freeze till solid or overnight. Once frozen, transfer the scones to a sealed bag. For maximum rising and flakiness, the dough needs to be kept very cold. The beauty of this recipe is that once the scones are frozen, you can bake as many or as few as you’d like. 

Preheat your oven to 400° F or 200°C.

When the oven is preheated, remove the number of scones you’d like to bake from the freezer, and put them on a parchment or silicone-lined pan then put it into the oven immediately.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the scones has risen well and are golden brown, rotating the pan halfway through so they brown evenly.

Brush the tops with the melted butter.

Serve warm with extra butter, if desired. I'll be honest. I only buttered the one you see below. They really don't need it. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s time for Bread Bakers, always the second Tuesday of the month, and Irish bread is our theme. Check out all the great recipes we are sharing ahead of St. Patrick’s Day below! Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Barmbrack by Magical Ingredients
• Boxty by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Belfast Baps by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Flakey Cheddar Guinness Scones by Food Lust People Love
• Irish Bread Rolls by Sneha’s Recipe
• Irish Soda Farls by Palatable Pastime
• Waterford Blaas by A Messy Kitchen
• Irish Oat Flapjacks by Cook with Renu
• Sourdough Irish Soda Bread by What Smells So Good?

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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