Gluten-free Vegan Maple Nut Scones

I woke up this morning (after my husband let me sleep in until after 9! Yes, that's sleeping in for me), with quite a headache, but for some reason, I was craving maple walnut scones. A quick search on the internet came up with these (a great blog, by the way!), which I of course had to modify :)

Some of the changes I made:
Coconut oil instead of palm shortening (because I have some really old palm shortening, but haven't had good experiences using it)
Buckwheat instead of rice flour (I wanted them to be more dense & hearty)
Added nuts instead of fruit
Used food processor instead of pastry cutter (because I don't have a pastry cutter!)


Gluten-free Vegan Maple Nut Scones
½ cup sorghum flour
½ cup tapioca flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup raw unrefined coconut oil
⅓ cup maple syrup
½ cup + 2 tablespoons canned coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

I do this trick to measure the coconut oil (which is still solid at room temperature this time of year): Put the 1/2 cup coconut milk in a glass measuring cup, and add chunks of oil until it gets to the 1 cup point.

Place the flours, baking powder, xanthan gum, and sea salt into a food processor. Fish the oil out of the milk, add it to the food processor, and pulse to mix. Dump this into a large bowl.

Add the syrup, milk, and vanilla to the bowl & mix with a spoon. You can add an egg or egg replacer at this point if you want fluffier scones. I didn't :) Fold in the walnuts.

Drop the blob of dough onto a cookie sheet, and press it down a bit until it's a flat circle. You can either score it into 8 scones, or cut it when it's done cooking. Bake for about 15 to 17 minutes.

We liked these. A lot. Especially my son. I tried to eat 2, but he ate a big chunk of my 2nd one. That's why there's only 3 left in the picture. Now there are only 1 1/2 left.