Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Scones

Scones:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt (if using buttermilk, see note for adding baking soda). Add the butter. Using a pastry blender or two forks, cut in the butter to the flour mixture until crumbly and the butter is in small pea-sized pieces. Alternately, you can grate the butter into the flour with the large holes of a box grater and toss to combine with the flour (don't cut the butter into chunks, leave it whole as a stick).
3. In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the cream (or buttermilk), mashed banana and vanilla extract.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture. Stir with a fork or rubber spatula until it starts to come together and forms large clumps. Add the chocolate chips or chocolate chunks.
5. Using your hands, knead the dough until it forms a cohesive mass and most of the dry ingredients are incorporated.
6. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter and pat into a long, skinny rectangle, about 15-inches long by 2 1/2-inches wide. (You can alter the dimensions if you want larger or smaller scones.) Using a sharp knife or bench knife, cut the rectangle into 12 wedges or triangles.
7. Place evenly spaced on the prepared baking sheet. At this point, you can cover and refrigerate for an hour to firm up the dough (or up to 24 hours) or bake right away. If baking right away, the scones might lose a bit of their shape, but they'll still taste great.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and baked through. Let cool completely or until just warm before glazing.
9. For the glaze, whisk together all the ingredients until smooth, thinning with extra water or milk, if needed. It should be thick but pourable. Drizzle the glaze evenly over the scones. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container at room temp for 1-2 days.

NOTES Buttermilk: if using buttermilk, decrease the baking powder to 1 1/2 teaspoons and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Scone Pan: this scone dough works great baked in a mini scone pan.

WHY DO MY SCONES TWIST AND FALL OVER WHEN THEY BAKE? The answer is – it could be due to a lot of things! And it happens to me with a few scones every batch. No worries; they still taste great! Here are a few tips that might help:

• don't twist or turn the knife while cutting – make straight even cuts
• if the dough is super super soft and sticky, add a bit more flour
• chill the scones before baking to firm up the butter/dough
• place them closer together on the baking sheet so they use each other to rise up instead of out
• cut them smaller

THE KEY TO PERFECT SCONES Don't over mix! Just like a good muffin batter, it's that simple. Over mixing scone dough can over develop the gluten which makes the scones dry and tough (it also melts the butter which is not ideal – you want the butter to stay clumpy so it melts in the oven creating pockets of steam which then creates layers of flakiness).

Pat the dough into a long, skinny rectangle. Cut the scones into small-ish triangles, or change up the shape and pat the dough into a circle or a larger rectangle. Use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut the dough into wedges. The dough should be pretty soft, so dipping the edge of the knife lightly into flour between each cut may help. Place the scones on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake right away, or refrigerate the dough until it firms up (about an hour or up to 24 hours).