Maple Pecan Scones

Today I am going to share something with you. Yes, I am sharing my requested Maple Pecan scone recipe. But I also want to share something more personal and very important:

Homemade baked items are far superior to any purchased baked items.

The only caveat to this are pastries and desserts purchased from a trusted baker that bakes from scratch with good ingredients and safe methods.

Why do I feel this way? Notice I didn’t say “better tasting”. Quite honestly, some people just aren’t the best bakers. Moreover, there are a lot of really great desserts you can purchase.

However, I feel this way for two reasons. First, home baked desserts signify the highest expression of love. Even though some home baked items aren’t the best tasting, I prefer them over purchased treats. Second, when you bake at home you know exactly what goes into what you are making. If you want to bake with all organic ingredients, or the highest quality products, you can.

It’s hard to find a baker who uses the best ingredients. Typically organic and/or high quality ingredients are too expensive for traditional small makers selling low priced products like cupcakes and cookies. When you bake from home on a smaller scale, you can actually buy better ingredients than a small business can afford on a larger scale.

When we started the bakery we were using the best of everything: European chocolate, the freshest organic dairy, non-GMO dry ingredients and the best vanilla. Over time we realized what most people in the business come to realize: it’s difficult to make a profit when you bake with the best ingredients and most of the items you sell are small desserts. Also, high quality ingredients are actually difficult to reasonably source in large quantities. However, small bakers cannot afford to buy in small amounts from the grocery store without sacrificing profit and time. I discovered that the major suppliers stock only cheap, poor quality ingredients. All of this meant we would order from multiple places in order to maintain our ingredient commitment. It was always an exercise in frustration. During the pandemic, it became even harder to source quality ingredients.

Here’s another secret: you don’t actually need to bake with the best ingredients. You just need safe ones. When you can’t source the best, you can still commit to using decent and safe ingredients. This is a great reminder when you can’t source your favorite ingredients due to unavailability or price. There are also many small businesses that use good and safe ingredients. You may have to play with your recipes when you use other ingredients however.

I am an ingredient girl. I create recipes for a living and I like to use the best ingredients because I want my end products to taste amazing. But even I am willing to compromise and use good, but safe, ingredients when the best are not affordable or available. When you understand ingredients you understand where to put your dollars.

If you’re on a budget, don’t get discouraged. Get educated instead.

There are some things I don’t compromise on no matter the cost, however. One of these ingredients is butter. No matter how cost prohibitive it got, or how difficult to source, we never compromised on using the best butter at the bakery. When it’s the main ingredient in basically everything you make, it’s important that it’s the best so it makes your products stand out from everyone else’s. I can taste when the butter used is cheap. I can also taste if it’s an oil-based product because oil lacks flavor. Many bakeries use oil because, frankly, it’s cheap.

The quality of your ingredients determines the quality of your end product.

Michelle Adams

I am not in favor of recipes that depend on a bunch of unhealthy ingredients like cake mixes, boxed puddings, canned pie fillings and jars of “edible substances”, for lack of a better word. I know plenty of bakeries that use cheap boxed cake mixes and canned pie fillings, then pass their products off as gourmet baked-from-scratch cakes and pies. It’s unethical to me. I understand my set of ethics is a little different from those people. It’s just dessert after all. Nonetheless, if a business is advertising products as made from scratch, then no part of the ingredients used should be “prepared”. Boxed cake mixes and canned pie fillings are prepared, ready-to-use and classified as processed food by the USDA. They have been nutritionally altered for boxing, canning and preserving. Therefore, using these ingredients does not rank as baking from scratch in my book.

However, I am in favor of using boxed mixes and canned fillings over purchasing highly processed, unhealthy food. Highly processed food is food that is ready to eat. This includes bakery items from the big box store (but not a from small bakery that makes desserts from scratch). Just look at the ingredient list. Highly processed foods contain ingredients most of us don’t even know how to pronounce.

If you are just starting out baking, or don’t have a lot of time to bake, please feel free to use the boxed mixes. They are preferred over the highly processed stuff they pass off as food.

Those Costco pies everyone goes crazy over? I would never buy them. Costco pies are made with harmful ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. It’s honestly what’s wrong with our world that businesses get away with selling products made so poorly. But I have to get back to scones.

The first scone I ever had was Maple Pecan and thus, I have always been partial to that flavor. I tried for years to find the perfect recipe but was always unhappy with the result. My scones always turned out dry and not as flavorful as I liked. Then I discovered a good recipe that used a lot more butter than others and it sealed the deal. Scones, like croissants, need butter. I have continued to use a lot of butter in my scone recipes to give them great buttery flavor and texture.

Make sure to use a good quality, unsalted butter in these scones since it’s such an important ingredient here. I know a lot of bakers prefer European butter. However, I prefer Wisconsin butter. Wisconsin is “America’s Dairyland” and since I am a Midwest girl, I prefer to use local ingredients. Moreover, I care about how my food is made and the humane treatment of animals. I use Grasslands Butter because of their pledge to sustainability and humane treatment of their cows. They do not feed their cows hormones, nor do they keep them confined in stalls their entire lives. Rather, the cows are pasture-fed. Jump over to the Grasslands website to read more about their butter: http://www.grassland.com.

Starting with a good base for your scones, you can easily turn them into any flavor you desire. If you want maple pecan scones, however, it’s important to use real maple syrup. For more information on the reason to use maple syrup, not pancake syrup, read my article: The Truth About Syrup.

When shaping the scones, be sure not to flatten the dough too much. In fact, the goal is to work quickly and handle the dough as little as possible. The butter remains cold and the scones have a fluffier texture. It is harder than it sounds however. All my pastry chefs at the bakery struggled with making scones when they started with us. The important thing to remember is that practice makes perfect. Besides, I never met a scone I wouldn’t eat because it was a little flat.

I don’t believe in depriving ourselves of the things we love to eat. When we use better ingredients and bake from home, our treats are healthier and better for us. Baking from scratch means you control what goes into your desserts.

One of my biggest joys is to spend time with my family eating good food. I hope my recipes help you to enjoy that as well. Surprise your family with these Maple Pecan Scones and let me know how they like them!