Low-Fat Strawberry Scones

Have you ever fallen in love with an ingredient?

I like to have fresh fruit with fat free yogurt for breakfast. A few weeks ago, my supermarket didn’t have the yogurt I usually buy; in fact, the only fat-free yogurt they weren’t out of was Greek yogurt, which I’d heard much about but had never used. So I got that.

If you’ve had Greek yogurt, you undoubtedly remember its wonderfully rich texture and intense flavor, even when it’s the fat-free kind.  And if you haven’t had it, you’re missing something good. One taste and I knew this was more than something to mix with fruit for breakfast. It was a special ingredient, a valuable addition to the arsenal of anyone who pursues the challenging task of low fat baking.

And so we come to low fat strawberry scones: low fat because they’re made with egg substitute, butter substitute, and the fat-free Greek yogurt.

One of the keys to low-fat baking is an understanding that there’s more to using butter-substitutes than simply using them instead of butter. The nuances I’ve learned are discussed in more detail in an earlier post (Impossible Pie Crust), but for now we’ll emphasize keeping it not just cold, but very cold. Cold (as you would keep butter) means refrigerator; very cold (as least as I’m using it for butter substitute) means freezer.  For related reasons, it’s best to make and work with the dough at a brisk pace; the longer you wait, the warmer your ingredients will become.

And what if you can’t find Greek yogurt? A good substitute for that can be made from regular fat free yogurt. Just create a make-shift filter by putting one or two paper towels in a strainer (coffee filters work too), pour your regular yogurt in and let it drain overnight, covered by plastic wrap. The amount of yogurt will reduce by as much as half once it is drained, and you’ll be left with something a good bit thicker and more intensely flavored that the yogurt you started with.

Another item in this recipe that benefits from explanation are the strawberries I use: they’re the frozen kind. It’s a lesson I learned years ago when making a muffin recipe I’d gotten out of a magazine and was appalled that it called for frozen strawberries. Frozen? Not in MY muffins. So fresh strawberries it was. And the muffins were awful, the cake tasting nothing like strawberries. Humbled by the experience, I went back and took out the improvements, making the muffins again but this time with the frozen strawberries called for in the recipe. I learned that frozen are not inferior to fresh, they just “bleed” in a different way that makes them useful for baked items in which you want the fruit flavor to permeate the cake.

One final note: as you’ll see in the photo, yes, I do a Jersey-style application for the glaze. If you want to do a more elegant squirt bottle or drizzle thing, feel free.

This recipe makes about eight 4” triangular scones (these size in the photo), or about sixteen 2-1/2” triangular scones.

While preheating your oven to 375 degrees, combine 2 cups of all-purpose flour, ¼ cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt in a bowl. Mix in 6 tablespoons of butter substitute (chilled in the freezer) and blend by hand or in a mixer until pea-size pieces form.

Make a well in the flour mixture and add ½ cup of very cold fat-free Greek yogurt (chilled in the freezer) and 2 egg substitute eggs. Mix the wet ingredients in the well completely, then combine with the dry ingredients to form a dough.

Dust ½ cup of diced, thawed frozen strawberries with flour, and fold into the dough.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to about ¾” thick and cut into triangles about 2-1/2” x 2-1/2” x 3”. Place about 1” apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake for 18-20 minutes, turning the baking sheet half-way. Once the scones have finished baking, let them cool on a rack for 30 minutes.

While the scones are cooling, make the glaze by combining the 1 tablespoon of pureed, thawed frozen strawberries with 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar until it is thick (but spreadable) and smooth.

After the scones have cooled, apply the glaze and wait 30 minutes for the glaze to get firm.

Hope you enjoy them!

For a cookbook-style, notebook-ready copy of this recipe (or any other recipe you see on this site), just let me know you’d like one and I’ll send it along.

See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)