Blueberry Cheesecake Scones

My life, lately, appears to be revolving around blueberries.  This is quite odd because I never grew up with blueberries.  I grew up with raspberries – tons of raspberries – and strawberries, and gooseberries, and with the odd blackberry thrown in for good measure.  Not one single blueberry was to be had.  So Blueberry Cheesecake Scones had never even been a fleeting thought in my mind.

The first time I ate a blueberry was in Canada – pretty soon after I ate my first American pancake; which was a few weeks after I ate my first nachos, and a few weeks before I ate soft-serve ice cream that you could take home in a cardboard box.  That soft-serve-at-home moment got me way more twitterpated than it really should have, but when you grew up thinking that soft-serve could only come on a cone from the ice cream van, being able to buy it in a waxed carton to take home and eat at your leisure was THE BOMB.  Then there was my first view of a 15″ pizza, my very first ever hotdog, and canned pumpkin.  Gosh, Canada was quite the food experience now I look back on it.

I like blueberries, but they’re not my favorite.  Raspberries will always be my favorite because my father grew raspberry canes, and every summer I would get to go down to the bottom of the garden and pick bowlfuls of huge, juicy, magnificent red berries.  Some of them were so huge and heavy I wondered how the slender stems held them up.  We always had far more raspberries than my mother knew what to do with.  She made a lot of jam, and I regularly ate Raspberry Flan for breakfast.  (Note: Flan in England is completely different to flan in America.  An English flan is a light sponge cake with raised sides that you fill with fresh fruit and serve with cream.  In America, flan is what we Brits would call crème caramel or caramel custard).  Americans pronounce flan with a really long ‘a’ which always makes me want to giggle.

My favorite way to eat raspberries was to pop a frozen berry in my mouth and let it thaw onto my tongue.  My mother open-froze them before stashing them in the deep freeze, so in summer there was always at least one tray of raspberries balancing on top of everything else in the freezer, waiting for her to pack them into boxes.  Mmmmm, frozen raspberries.  Like the best popsicle ever but with none of the time or effort.

While blueberries would never be my first berry pick, I am always happy to eat them if they are there.  Blueberries are an American institution, though, so I completely understand that I need to make stuff with blueberries in.  My current blueberry-itis started with Vanilla Blueberry Pancakes.  Actually, that’s not quite true.  It started when Fred Meyers had fresh blueberries on sale for $1.88.  To give you context, they normally sell – in Seattle anyway – for $3.99; so it was a given that I was taking some of those squidgy blue berries home to my kitchen.  Right away.

I started with Vanilla Blueberry Pancakes.  “Not a day too soon!” I heard many of you cry.  Then I whipped up some Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream, which went down an absolute storm at the first LCHF / KETO Ice Cream Taste Test I conducted at the office.  Then I had a desperate plea on The Keto Kitchen Facebook Group from Deb saying that she had just bypassed the most amazing looking Blueberry Scone at Starbucks, and that I needed to make a keto version.  PLEASE!!  So when I peered in my ‘fridge and saw blueberries left over from the ice cream and pancake adventures, I knew exactly what to do with them.  Blueberry Scones with a twist – because I was still high from Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream success.  I give you Blueberry Cheesecake Scones.

I am not sure what else I really need to say here.  These Blueberry Cheesecake Scones are stinkin’ awesome, and you should hurry off to your kitchen right now and make a batch.  And that’s coming from a non-blueberry lover.

I deliberately made these thick and rustic looking – a little bit rough and ready around the edges.  The cooking temperature and time reflect this, so if you choose to make your Blueberry Cheesecake Scones thinner so that you have more, you will need to tweak the cooking time and temp accordingly.

They are a light, buttery scone studded with juicy blueberries that ‘pop’ when you bite into them.  Eat them hot out the oven, naked. (I meant the scones, not you – but hey, who am I to tell you how to dress when you eat your Blueberry Cheesecake Scones?).  Eat them slathered with butter.  Pile on some jam and whipped coconut cream.  Or eat them my favorite way – with Lemon Curd.  However you decide to do it, just eat them.

GO, Blue!

Blueberry Cheesecake Scones

Author: Carrie Brown | Prep time:  10 mins   |   Cook time:  20 mins    |   Total time:  30 mins  |  Serves: 10

What You Need

• 15 oz. / 420g almond flour (ground almonds)
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 4 TBSP xylitol
• 6 oz. / 170g unsalted butter, cold and chopped into pieces
• 1 egg
• ½ cup / 4 fl oz. sour cream
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 6 oz / 170g fresh blueberries
• Beaten egg to glaze

What You Do

1. Place almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, sea salt, xylitol and chopped, cold butter into a food processor and pulse just until it resembles breadcrumbs. Do not over process!
2. Turn into a mixing bowl and add the egg, sour cream, lemon zest, and blueberries and mix just enough to form a rough, soft dough. Be gentle so you don’t smash the blueberries.
3. Turn onto a board (use almond flour to dust if sticky) and knead about 5 times until the dough is all together. Be very gentle. The dough will be very shaggy.
4. Flatten the dough lightly with your hand until it is a 1 ½ inch thick. This is the same thickness as my metal cutter.
5. Use a round 2 ½ inch metal cutter to cut into thick circles.
6. Very gently push the dough out of the cutter and place each scone on a baking sheet.
7. Brush with beaten egg.
8. Bake in the center of the oven at 325 F for 20 – 22 minutes until golden brown.

Top Recipe Tips

• The xanthan gum improves the texture by providing some structure, and helps the scones to maintain their rise in the oven.  You can omit it if you don’t have any but you will not get such a good result.
• If you don’t have a metal cutter, use an upturned glass as a guide and cut out with a knife. If you use a plastic cutter or something that doesn’t have a sharp, cutting edge you will effectively squash the sides of the scones down as you push and they will not rise as well.
• Check out the Ingredients Guide for information on ingredients.
• Where Are The Macros and Nutritional Info?

Helpful Cooking and Recipe Links

• Want other healthy scones and biscuits?  Go here.
• Come laugh and learn with us over at The Kitchen Podcast
• Come hang out in The Keto Kitchen Facebook Group
• For lots more great recipes check out our scrumptious cookbooks!

Podcast Episodes

• Nuts
• How and Why to Measure Food
• Where Are The Macros and Nutritional Info?

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