Chocolate Cinnamon Scone Bites and my new banner

Here it is...I finally got my own banner! This is part of my birthday gift from Wally. Those of you who were already reading my blog probably remember that my "maritino" (hubby) asked a friend of his, a super cool artist, to make my blog banner for my birthday. She was pretty busy in this period so she could not make it ontime but I was totally fine with waiting a bit longer because I knew the result would have been amazing. She has this amazing capability in translating somebody's personality into a drawing. 

The first work of her I saw were actually some drawings of my two oldest kitties, transformed in a cartoonish way and I thought they were just getting the essence of my two weirdos. When Wally told me about my birthday gift I was ecstatic and now you can see the reason. I'm really happy because those who know me (I mean that really met me in person) will immediately see how my banner is SOOO me and those who don't know me will really be able to grasp my essence a bit more. (And yes, I am cartoonish even in real life. I have this weird habit of making silly faces, voices and....sounds...yes...sounds...that making me a walking cartoon). Now I have to adjust my template...but that's enough for today :)

To thank Wally I made some yummy scones because they are his favorite baked good and I realized I hadn't made them in a while. I found this recipe on McCormick website but I changed it a bit. In particular, I drastically reduced the amount of chocolate. While I was adding it to the dough, the quantity on McCormick recipe seemed to me way too much. Both Wally and I loved them this way so I'm happy of my change. I hope you will enjoy it too and most important I hope you like the banner as much as I do!

Chocolate Cinnamon Scone Bites

Ingredients
400 gr (14 oz or 2 1/4 cups) flour
140 gr (5 oz or 2/3 cup) sugar
12 gr (2 1/2 tsp) baking powder

10 gr (2 tsp) cinnamon

2.5 gr (1/2 tsp) baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

113 gr (1/2 cup or 1 stick) cold butter, cut into chunks

2 eggs

170 gr (6 oz or 3/4 cup) sour cream

10 gr (2 tsp) vanilla extract

85 gr (3 oz) semi-sweet baking chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 375°F and prepare two baking pans with parchment paper.

In a big bowl, mix the flour, the sugar, the baking powder, the cinnamon, the baking soda and the salt. Cut in butter and mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 


In a small bowl, beat the eggs together with the sour cream and the vanilla extract until you obtain a smooth cream. Add the cream to the flour mixture and stir until you obtain a soft dough. Stir in chopped chocolate. 


Place the dough on lightly floured surface and knead for about 1 minute or until smooth. Pat the dough into a rectangle and cut it into small square or even irregular bites if you prefer. Place the little squares onto the baking pans. (I obtained more or less 30 squares and thus I needed two baking pans)


Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and let them cool slightly on a cooling rack before devouring them!


Note: if can still bake them in the usual scones shapes. If you do so, however, you need to cook them more or less for 10 minutes longer.