These scones have a touch of maple syrup and cocoa powder for extra flavor. You can make these with or without the cocoa powder though if you don’t have it on hand. It’s good both ways and produces a different looking scone each way.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder.
Using your hands, press and knead diced butter into the dry ingredients until butter has combined with the flour.
Add egg yolks, maple syrup, sugar, and half and half. (You can also use milk to lighten up the recipe or go heavier and use cream.) Stir until wet and dry ingredients are well combined and saturated. Dough may still be crumbly.
Finally mix in the chocolate chips. If you'd like a polka-dotted look to your scones, set aside some chocolate chips to press into the top in a minute.
Gather the dough with your hands and knead it into a ball. Press the dough ball flat between your hands forming a circle that is less than 1 ½" thick. Place the flattened circle of dough onto a lined baking sheet and slice the dough like a pizza, into eight slices.
Spread out the slices to leave room for each scone to expand. If you want that polka-dotted look, press your reserved chocolate chips into the tops of your scones.
Bake at 400˚ for 20-25 minutes or until edges just start to turn golden brown.
To avoid over-cooked bottoms, remove scones immediate from the baking sheet and transfer to a cooling rack. Or carefully lift your silicon/parchment paper liner with scones from the hot pan and place onto a cool surface.
If topping with icing, beat together powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk in a bowl using a whisk or hand mixer until combined. Pour over or pipe icing onto cooled scones using a sandwich bag with the corner cut to form a small dispensing hole.
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Notes
The dough is very crumbly and dry. It does come together eventually. Don't give up! Keep mixing until you get to the gather stage and then use your hand to press the crumbles together to form the final dough before baking.