Banana scones, breakfast for days out of one large banana about to go off. Cake for breakfast is definitely a thing.
Does the world need another recipe for scones? And does it need another banana bake recipe? Clearly yes, especially one combining the two.
Samantha Seneviratne’s recipe from Food52, slightly tweaked to skip the chocolate chips as I wanted to eat these scones for breakfast, but with a few raisins added in instead because why not?
Cake for breakfast
Some people shudder but I personally adore having cake for breakfast. If you think about it, the morning is the best time to have carbs-rich foods because there is subsequently the whole day ahead to burn all these calories. And it seems to be the scientific opinion to a certain extent, as well.
Post-lunch dessert gives you a sugar slump and after dinner a lighter pudding in the form of cream, mousse or ice cream is much more fitting than a great wodge of cake.
So morning is my caketime of choice. What kind of cake is the best for breakfast then?
What cake for breakfast?
I wouldn’t have anything creamy or overlavishly frosted. Having said that about creamy, a scone with clotted cream and jam is very suitable indeed, perhaps because clotted cream is almost butter and butter’s all right for breakfast.
Chocolate isn’t a morning thing for me either, however much I love brownies. Meringue is out, obviously, as are cookies – far too great a concentration of sugar.
Something plain-ish, perhaps baked in a loaf tin. No icing. In a nutshell - banana bread! No wonder it became such a hit in the first pandemic lockdown.
And this recipe is that, and more, because scones are right up there too as far as breakfast fodder goes.
Plus, it uses just one overripe banana which is always left in the fruit basket, getting spottier and browner by the day. And you can put it together without a mixer because it’s so easy to make.
How to make banana scones?
The method is redolent of making classic English scones: rubbing cold butter into the dry ingredients, then whisking in the mix of mashed banana, double cream and egg which makes up wet ingredients.
The rubbing in stage needs your fingers or two knives (I rely on the former); the mixing part just needs a fork as overmixing is not recommended.
The pastry mix then needs to be dumped onto a tray lined with parchment and shaped into a round, in the fashion of making a big round mud cake. Cut it into wedges and the trickiest part of the whole process comes up: spacing the wedges a little bit apart so that the tips of the scones are not touching and are allowed to be baked through.
Samantha picked the scones by hand and moved them around the tray but mine would crumble away. Fashioning a triangle out of two knives or bench scrapers to shift the wedges apart seemed to work better in my case.
Alternatively, don’t try to prise them apart until about halfway-through the baking time – it will be much easier to do when they have set in the oven.
These scones are happy to be frozen, or else keep them in an airtight container and toast, split horizontally, should they dry out after a couple of days. Toasted and buttered, they are totally divine!
More scone recipes
The classic, plain scones served with clotted cream and jam, whichever should be spread on first, are hard to trump, for breakfast or any other time of day.
Is it a scone? Is it a cinnamon roll? It’s both, a giant cinnamon roll scone wedges that look so impressive and melt in the mouth.
If you prefer your breakfast savoury, try cheddar and chive scones, with cheese oozing beautifully out of the pastry in lacy patterns.
More banana recipes
Another, very simple breakfast idea: banana and bacon, with a drizzle of maple syrup. And it’s a kind of Elvis tribute too.
Banana bran muffins are quite high in sugar but they are also rich in fibre which makes them more balanced, healthwise.
If you’re nuts about cereal and go bananas for granola, this is one for you: banana nut granola with an extra crunch!