Dark Chocolate Fudge Scones

Ingredients

For the scones:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened dark cocoa (I used [Double Dutch Dark Cocoa|http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/double-dutch-dark-cocoa-16-oz])
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 Tablespoons (1/2 cup or 1 stick) cold, unsalted butter
1 large egg
about 6 Tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the fudgy ganache topping:

1 1/2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
3 ounces heavy cream
6 ounces chopped dark chocolate
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and salt.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, two knives or you can rub the butter in with your fingertips, until the mixture is crumbly and you have varied size butter chunks no larger than peas.
Crack an egg in a glass measuring cup and whisk it with a fork. Then add cream until you reach 1/2 cup, then add 2 more tablespoons of cream to the mixture. Add vanilla. Mix with a fork until well blended.
Make a well in the center of flour mixture and pour in the egg/cream mixture. Toss gently with a fork until you've distributed the liquid well and mixture begins to hold together a bit. Your mixture is going to seem to be too dry, but try to resist adding more liquid.
Use your hands to gently mix/lightly knead the mixture in the bowl until it comes together. I squeeze the mixture, flip it over to pick up dry bits and squeeze again. Don't over work or over mix. Just squeeze and flip until there are no dry bits left in the bowl. You want bits of butter to still be visible when your form the scones.
Once the dough comes together, lay two overlapping sheets of plastic wrap on your work surface to create an area large enough to wrap up your dough once you shape it.
Shape dough into a square about 3/4" thick. My square was about 6 1/2"-7" across.
Wrap the dough square in the plastic wrap and place it on a tray.
Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes or until it has become firm.
Unwrap the dough and cut into 8 triangles. Place scones a few inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. (You can brush the tops with additional cream, if desired. See notes.)
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until you see them puff up and tops have cracked. Mine took 12 minutes. Take care not to over bake or the scones will become dry.
Allow to cool and set up for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a rack to finish cooling.
Make the ganache. In a small saucepan, combine the corn syrup and heavy cream.
Bring to a simmer and add the chocolate. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.
Top each cooled scone generously with the ganache and sprinkle with mini chocolate chips.

Recipe Notes

*I store these in an air tight container in the refrigerator because of the ganache. Some feel you can leave ganache out for a couple of days, but I err on the conservative side when storing food. Ten seconds in the microwave works to heat one up, though my husband and son preferred them cold. If you don't top them, you can wrap them in foil and be left out on the counter for 2 days or so.

*You can brush the tops with cream before baking, if you wish. I did that on my first batch, out of habit, but it's completely unnecessary as you will be completely covering the tops with ganache. If you aren't topping them, I would brush them with cream and then generously top each with some coarse raw sugar.

*You can use regular unsweetened or Dutch process cocoa in this recipe. I recommend using a dark cocoa.

*This is not a super sweet scone. I didn't mean for it to be as sweet as a brownie, cookie or cake. If you like a sweeter scone, you can try adding another tablespoon or two of sugar to the dough, though I've never used more than 1/2 cup and I'm not sure how it would change the texture. Instead, I would recommend making the topping sweeter. You can use 1/2 milk chocolate/1/2 dark chocolate or even all milk chocolate for a much sweeter fudge topping.

*If you don't feel like making the ganache, they are really, really good slathered with some Nutella :)

Ganache recipe adapted from [Alton Brown|http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ganache-recipe.html]