Carrot Cake Scones with Pistachio Craquelin

A batch of tender scones for tender times.

Hi everyone.

It feels both absurd and comforting to be sharing a baking recipe with you in the midst of everything going on.

I’m writing this post after having just spent the last three hours serving soup to a room of nearly one hundred queer people and allies who made it out to Queer Soup Night despite the frigid temps here in Brooklyn and despite how difficult the path forward feels right now.

The night’s beneficiary was the Amandla Collective, an organization that brings people together over food to discuss, plan, and enact change for social justice. Inspired by civil rights figures such as Georgia Gilmore, the collective understands and harnesses the power of sharing ideas and actions across a shared table.

I had the honor of serving soup alongside Amandla’s founder, Erica Lezama. Erica made a delicious Zuppa Toscana inspired by the classic Olive Garden soup. I made a creamy coconut and tomato soup loaded with garlic and a touch of smokey paprika and cinnamon. The night was beautiful - warm with new connections being made left and right. There’s no other place I would have wanted to be.

Scenes from Queer Soup Night at C'mon Everybody

The night left me feeling reflective and more deeply committed to my community and to continuing to create and share beautiful and hopeful things. I think that writing or following a recipe is an inherently hopeful act. An investment made in hopes of a nourishing outcome. Like handing someone a bowl of hot soup, asking someone how they’re feeling and truly listening, or joining a small group committed to change and progress. We get there together, one day at a time. 💖

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Today’s recipe…

If you’ve been here for a minute, you know that I love scones and have developed quite a few recipes for them. At some point the world may reach peak scone saturation but we’re not there yet and so I dutifully continue to add to the canon.

I love seeing a classic dessert shift to a different form-factor. Tiramisu cookie, brownie pie, snickerdoodle muffins, etc. It’s exciting and challenging to develop a recipe where a set of familiar flavors hops the tracks and becomes a little less recognizable but still delicious with a familiar charm.

I also love love carrot cake. The comforting density of a thick slice weighed down with shredded carrot, warm spices, and (for me) raisins or other dried fruits or nuts. Packing all that and more into a scone was a little tricky but I landed on a technique that incorporates carrot into every bite of these.

In place of a sweet glaze I opted for a crunchy cookie topping known as craquelin. Usually seen baked atop pâte à choux buns which are often filled with cream. Here, the craquelin is a little thicker and studded with pistachios. It’s a nice contrast to the tender scones beneath and it couldn’t be easier to make. It comes together quickly in a stand mixer just like a basic shortbread.

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A few notes…

• After attempting to simply grate the carrot and mix it into the dough, then an attempt at boiling and pureeing the carrot to oomph up the flavor, I settled on pulsing grated carrot into the flour using a food processor. This infused the carrot completely into the dough and provided hydration alongside the buttermilk for a tender scone that’s far from dry.

• Sometimes carrot cake feels like an excuse to use up the remnants of your spice drawer. I decided to back off the spice a tad and focus on two heroes here. Cinnamon and turmeric. The two play really nicely together and the turmeric helps to amplify the golden orange hue from the carrots.

• If the scone dough feels a little tricky to handle because of how wet it is, move it to the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes to firm up before moving ahead.

• The craquelin will be a little brittle when it’s removed from the freezer. It’s prone to snapping if handled aggressively but don’t fear, just wait for the craquelin to warm up a bit and it can be pressed or kneaded back together and rerolled.

Carrot Cake Scones with Pistachio Craquelin