Cheesy Soda Scones

I’m featuring Rachel Allen’s Cheesy Irish Soda Bread Scones.  This soda scone recipe is a savory herb and cheese scone perfect for dunking in soup or stew.

Irish Soda Bread Scones

Here’s a recipe for St. Patrick’s Day! I’m celebrating Rachel Allen’s cookbook: Rachel’s Irish Family Food with a cheesy version of Irish Soda Bread Scones. We enjoy dunking them in my Irish Stew. The three people in my family have no problem demolishing 8 scones between us.

If you’re familiar with breakfast scones, then you know that a typical sweet scone is made with a lot of butter and it breaks apart easily into chunks. Many times it’s dry and not all that appetizing either. This soda scone recipe is different.  It’s savory instead of sweet, and it’s more like an Irish Soda Bread biscuit with chives and cheese added in.

Soda Scone Recipe

These soda scones are super easy to make, and there are just 6 ingredients. There’s no butter in the recipe, but it does utilize buttermilk. The fun part is, the instructions have you using your hands to mix. If that weirds you out, you can always enlist the kiddos to do the hand-mixing part.  The dough is just patted onto a floured surface.

I use a biscuit cutter for the rounds, but you can take a drinking glass with a semi-small diameter and use that instead if you don’t have fancy cutters.  Or just use whatever you can dig up that works as a quasi-cutter.

Each dough round is topped with (sharp) cheddar cheese and more chopped chives.  You could get all fancy here and use a different kind of cheese and whatever herb you want (rosemary, thyme, etc.).  I love to use SHARP cheddar because I enjoy the flavor.  In fact, I usually purchase the sharpest cheddar I can.  I love the stuff… which is why I have to banish myself from eating cheese every so often or I’ll go through a whole slab of the stuff in a couple of days time.

They bake in just 15 minutes and come out looking like this: all crazy cheesy and golden brown.  They are best when hotsy totsy right out of the oven (or at least eaten the same day).  We do love them just out of the oven, but leftover soda scones with leftover Irish Stew is just about the best thing ever!

You have to be thinking of this soda scone recipe as a version of Irish Soda Bread (which is not super duper rich and flavorful by any stretch of the imagination), and just think of them as an easy “biscuit” to serve with your meal.  We gobble them up, but it’s important to add your favorite flavors to the scone to fully appreciate them.

Here are a few more Irish soda bread recipes you might enjoy:

• Brown Butter Soda Bread
• Irish Soda Bread Muffins
• Breakfast Irish Soda Bread
• Irish Soda Bread with Raisins and Caraway

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Cheesy Soda Scones

By RecipeGirl.com (re-printed with permission from Harper Collins and adapted slightly from Rachel's Irish Family Food)

A savory scone topped with herbs and cheese. They're perfect with soup or stew.

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 15 minutes mins

Total: 25 minutes mins

Servings: 8 servings (1 scone per serving)

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1¾ cups all purpose flour
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ½ tablespoon finely chopped chives (plus a few extra)
• ▢ ½ + ⅓ cup buttermilk (measure ½, then measure ⅓)
• ▢ ⅓ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Instructions 

• Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Flour a baking sheet.
• Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a bowl. Mix in ½ tablespoon chives. Make a well in the center and pour the buttermilk (both) into the well. Using one hand, with your fingers outstretched like a claw, stir in a full circular movement from the center to the outside of the bowl to form a dough. The dough should be soft, though not too wet and sticky.
• When the dough comes together, turn it out onto a well floured surface. Pat the dough until it is about ¾ inch thick. Cut into 8 rounds and place on the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle each round of dough with cheese and additional chives.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden and sounding hollow when tapped on the bottom. Turn the oven down to 400 after 10 minutes if they are already golden. Remove from the baking sheet and place on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

Notes

• Change up the cheese and/or herbs as you see fit (think: Swiss, Gouda, rosemary, thyme!)

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 134kcal, Carbohydrates: 22g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 7mg, Sodium: 271mg, Potassium: 67mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 97IU, Vitamin C: 0.1mg, Calcium: 66mg, Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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