Almond Cherry Chocolate Scones

This recipe is brought to you by our local grocery, at which both of us stopped on our respective ways home, noticed $1.99/lb cherries, squeed, and brought home a large bag. I wouldn't dare to call these scones healthy - there are, perhaps, lower calorie lumps of dough that have been shaped and baked into things resembling scones, but those fluffy things aren't real scones, and you may as well make muffins if that's what you're going for. (I don't have opinions or anything.) However the use of almond flour and Greek yogurt at least make these somewhat nutritious and much more filling than the plain flour and milk variety, so I am eager for raspberry season when I can repeat this recipe with an abundance of those.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into small pieces
2 cups flour
1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk, buttermilk, or non-dairy milk*
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
generous 1 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup chopped cherries
3/4 cup chopped bittersweet baking chocolate
More milk or melted butter for brushing
Large crystal sugar (turbinado or demerara) for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a blender or pastry dough masher (or if you have to, a fork) to mash the cold butter into about 1.75 cups of the flour. It should have approximately the texture of cornmeal with no big chunks of butter, though tiny ones are ok.

Add the almond flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, and mix these in too. Stir in the milk, yogurt, and almond extract. Knead if need be (haha...) to incorporate all ingredients. The dough should be malleable and not overly sticky. If it's sticking to your hands, add the rest of the flour, a little bit at a time, and work it into the dough until you can pull your hand clean off.

Fold in the chocolate and cherries. Try to scoop them all up in the dough. Fail and eat a quarter of them as they fall out. Dump a whole bunch of flour on your counter, table, floor or other surface, break the dough in half, and plop one half on the floured surface. Give it a few good whacks until it's roughly circular and about an inch tall. Cut into sixths and transfer to baking sheet. Repeat with second half.

Brush pieces with milk or melted butter and sprinkle with crystal sugar. Bake about 20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick comes out clean. You can also hold off on the brushing and sugaring until about 5 minutes until the scones are done to help the sugar not just melt directly into the scones. But I don't trust myself with that.

*You can make buttermilk by adding a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar to however much regular milk you need. Will not work with dairy-free milk.