When I have my period (I know, first the mouse droppings, now the period, can I be any more unappetizing? Unless that’s your thing…) I crave 3 things; ginger, chocolate, punching people.
Unfortunately, I can’t punch people. I don’t even really want to because I generally dislike physical contact. But I can take my aggressions out in the form of baking. Even if it is 98 degrees out and I have no air conditioning. I just think of it as similar to Bikram Yoga.
“Bikram Yoga, also known as Hot Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105?F (40.5?C) with a humidity of 50%.”
All of your tensions just kind of rise to the surface and you take it out on your product, in this case Ginger Chocolate Scones, ultimately resulting in a calm state of bliss. Scones are a perfect subject for Bikram Baking, because they are pretty forgiving and may take even better to impatience, frustration and lack of precision.
Preheat your oven, not to 350F, 350F is for weaklings. No. To 400F. You can take it.
Violently throw all of the your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, fork a bunch of mise en place because the ingredients are so few anyway. Forget an actual sifter, just swish it all around with a fork, making nail-on-chalkboard noises as you scrape against the bowl. All the while make sure you are focusing on everyone that’s ever wronged you. Your racist 8th grade dance teacher? Fuck. Her. Screeeeeech. Your FedEx guy that refuses to ring your bell? Hope your polyester uniform is comfortable in this heat, sucker. Scraaaaatch. Dick Cheney? Well, let’s save that one for when we’re making pandowdy.
Now take that chocolate bar and just smash it with your knife. Remember that guy who said that vegans produce more methane than cows do? Your chocolate chunks should be just about the right size now.
By now some tensions have been resolved and the oven is preheated. You want out. But you know that just a few moments more and nirvana or some facsimile will be achieved. Add your wet ingredients, but eyeball those bastards because you can’t quite be trusted with glass at this point. Mix it up quickly. But channel all that impatience because you don’t want to over-mix. Is almost everything just moistened? Are there dustings of flour still left on the surface? Well, good.
Now breathe. Get it together. Gently fold in the chocolate chunks. Yes, it’s getting hot in here, but you’re not in a cramped city kitchen anymore, you’re in the Bahamas. Long before Colombus came and forked everything up.
Your baking sheet. Pristine and glistening like a sea, with a few nicks and the rough spots of history. Lightly grease it.
You have your wits about you now enough to grab a 1/4 measuring cup or perhaps an ice cream scoop. Of the earth but not attached to it. Grease that, too. Now scoop up that dough, however it falls, nice big sloppy scoops, and drop them out on your sheet, close together is fine, they will fit for it is their destiny.
Right then. Still a little anger left in you. Let it manifest itself as hope. Grab pinches of pebbly turbinado sugar and fling them onto your scones like so much fairy dust.
Now get those the oven for 15 minutes and find a room with air conditioning and wait. What are you crazy? Oh, and get someone else to clean up the mess you made.
Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones Pile Up
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch allspice
1/2 cup turbinado sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups non-dairy milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
About 5 ounces chocolate
Holy jumpin’! I can’t wait to try these babies out Saturday morning!
I love the idea of Bikram Baking Isa! You better hurry and get a trade mark on the name.
This post made me happy.
only 15 minutes, for reals? must check cupboard for ginger.
They will be yummy even without ginger, I promise! It’s really just the VwaV scone recipe modified a bit. What I REALLY wanted was some crystalized ginger, but beggers can’t be choosers.
how much crystallized ginger would you have used?
Oh, I dunno, 1/4 cup?
Now they can all kiss Midol goodbye.
o..m..g.. I was in exactly the same mood when I read this. I added a handful of chopped crystalized ginger to mine and used half a bag of tropical source chips instead of a bar. I brought them into work this morning and they were gone in just a few minutes. 😀 These are heavenly.
Isa, I love the way you write a recipe. 🙂
The scones look great too.
Ginger and Chocolate? Easily my favorite flavor combination. If this post/recipe doesn’t get me to fiiiiinally make some scones (another love of mine), nothin will.
You make these sound so forking sexy, Isa! And I don’t even love ginger that much. I do, however, relish the thought of attacking a block of chocolate with a huge knife.
sounds great!
These sound absolutely delicious. And I have some crystalized ginger in the freezer I’ve been waiting to use forever 🙂 I love the way you wrote this with such attitude.
I really want to turn off the air conditionning now !
I’d buy a whole cookbook written by you for SPMing Vegans…
or how about Bikram Menopausal Vegan Vengeance Baking ?
Dammit. I don’t have enough soymilk in!
I made these the other day, and they’re very good. That said, I have a little quibble with your use of the word “non-dairy.” My understanding is that this word simply means “not dairy-based” whereas “dairy-free” means what it ought to. So soy cheese containing casein would be “non-dairy” but not “dairy-free.” Of course, I haven’t actually found any non-dairy milks that aren’t also dairy-free (though Trader Joe’s used to sell a strawberry soymilk that was colored with carmine), but I’d be much happier if I never saw the word “non-dairy” again.
“Non-dairy” milk that is also “dairy-free”–rice milk?
Also, I substituted orange extract for the vanilla and put in a little cayenne pepper for kick!
haha
if only all recipes were like that
I’m totally going to try this!
Yum! I made these this morning when I was feeling grouchy because I am visiting my parents and my mom woke me up at 9am (it is Saturday!) to make breakfast. I don’t have a copy of VwaV here so I was at a loss of what to make, then looked through the recipes saved in my RSS feeds and found these! Delicious!
That is likely the coolest recipe I have ever read. I don’t mean the contents, delightful though they are. I mean the comments along the way.
And saving Cheney for a separate baking hatefest’s a good idea. Might want to make a double batch.
I made these and took them to my family for the mandatory Sunday dinner last week. My switch from vegitarian to vegan has been a huge pain in the ass for them. However, these amazing scones just might have won them over seeing that they were devoured within minutes. I love it! I’m keeping the oven on. I’ve got buisness to do!
i made these yesterday, substituted 1/3 of the flour with soy flour. very good!
It’s probably too late for you to still be checking these comments, but I wanted to let you know I REALLY love these scones. I made a 1/6th batch and got two perfect scones and was super impressed with the texture. I’ve made these three times now and know I will make them many times in the future. They’re so good my not-even-vegetarian husband picked them over cupcakes as a dessert choice!
wow. it’s like you KNOW me! as mother nature is going to be knocking on MY door soon, methinks I’ll be making these this evening… as an accompaniment to the Butternut Rancheros!
she is f*&^8ng hysterical… i was laughing the whole time while reading this…
These are the best scones! My family and I are huge fans (of both this recipe as well as many of your others). I substituted espresso powder for the ginger to pair with a soy latte. Delicious – thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes!
love this, perfect timing for me…
I just made these and they were the best scones I have ever had. You rock. Thanks for the recipe!
I want to try these, but I pictured chocolate covered crystalized ginger, which will make everything bad in the universe good again. Mmm ginger….
I made these tonight and they were fantastic. Definitely a new favorite in the house. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
I was actually in a great mood when I started making these. I got in to an argument halfway through the wet ingredients, however, and had to take it out on the mixing. I worked through all that anger by the time they went in the oven and now I’m nice and calm again, with amazing chocolaty scones to eat. Thanks!
I made these for valentines dessert tonight and my omni-chef boyfriend has already eaten half of them!!! 😀
these were really good. love the ginger kick. my omni friends all loved them. thanks isa!!!!
I made these this morning. I was in a good mood. Beating the crap to smash my chocolate put me in a better mood. I’m not entirely fond of scones or ginger to be honest, but these were fantastic. Thank you for a great recipe and if I don’t eat them all by Monday, my coworkers will thank you too!
wow! f’in awesome.
In how many degrees have to bake it? or must not be baked?
xxx thank you
I used powdered ginger and diced crystallized ginger (1/4 cup). Love them but next time I’d up both types of ginger.
mmm these were excellent! I used whole wheat pastry flour and it still turned out absolutely wonderful. I added about 1/3 cup of crystallized ginger and definitely think that anyone who plans on making these should do that. Its a great POP of gingery flavor! Thanks for the great, simple recipe and I love your blog post 😛
These are PERFECTTTT.
Also, since it doesn’t say how many servings/scones it should make, I’m assuming it’s just one serving, maybe 2? Bc that’s the rate I’m going right now.
This is an absolutely wonderful recipe. Also so funny it is hard to stir and laugh. They were great with the chocolate and just as good with blueberries. Thanks for the great time, unfortunately even though I share with the husband, I still had to clean up the mess. After 56 yrs I do not mind doing it all, since he is still here with me. Thanks again
I just made these, and they are delicious! I used 1/4 cup of chopped crystalized ginger instead of the powdered ginger, and it worked. I also substituted about 2/3 of the oil for apple sauce, with no negative effects, as far as I can tell. And, one of the cups of flour was whole wheat flour, because I ran out of white. Again, no problems there. Maybe it changed the texture (I don’t know), but it still tastes great!
Just made these for breakfast, and they are AWESOME! The hint of spices is perfect to go with morning coffee or tea! Tahnk you, Isa! xx
These are delicious, used crystalized ginger, coconut milk, they came out perfect. My husband, 20month old gobbled them up. I froze the leftovers after I baked them and pull them out for a quick breakfast, just turned on oven real low and put them on a pan to lightly warm up. Sooooo good. Thank you, keep the scone ideas coming.
Just tried these the other day and they were fantastic. Love the ginger chocolate combo. Wonderful