I've been playing with this recipe for a few weeks, and here's what I did today (so I don't forget):

• Tripled the recipe, so we have enough for another breakfast
• Substituted fresh ground hulled barley flour for the whole wheat pastry flour, because barley is supposed to help lower cholesterol, and cholesterol is supposed to be connected to the level of inflammation in the body.
  
• Used 1 1/2 cups butter, and 1 1/4 cups coconut oil (I used a little less coconut oil than butter because I've read the substitution rate (coconut oil for butter) is 3/4 to 1).
• Used 4 cups of oats, and attempted to flake them in the blender. It worked okay, but it was really more like a coarse meal (I wonder if that was because I forgot to turn it off? Bingo!).
• Substituted 2 cups finely chopped walnuts for the rest of the oats.
• Used a tablespoon of dried orange zest instead of fresh orange zest.
• For the buttermilk, I used 2 cups of home-frozen pumpkin puree (This was really a way to use up pumpkin, not a way to add nutrition. I figure there should be a generous 2 teaspoons of pumpkin puree in each scone), 3 tablespoons lemon juice, and ~1 1/2 cups whole milk (I should have used more milk. It wasn't easy to handle.)
• Substituted generous 1 1/2 cups chopped California dates for the currants, plus three (finely chopped) Medjool dates.
  
• Soaked the flour according to the WAPF guidelines: mixed the barley flour and oats together, rubbed in the coconut oil by hand, and grated the butter over the top. Stirred in the pumpkin puree, lemon juice, and milk, and let it sit on the counter overnight (room temp: 60 degrees). Next morning, kneaded in the cream of tartar (1 1/2 teaspoons), baking soda (6 teaspoons), chopped walnuts, and chopped dates.
  
• And before I kneaded it in, I added more milk so I could knead it in. Maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup?...
• No sugar. Hooray!
• They baked for about 25 minutes at 350 before they were done.
• The texture-- sandy, crumbled easily, coarse-grained. The flavor-- I really like dates, and I like them more the more I use them. A little strong with orange-ness. I wanted to use cinnamon, but we were out (I think next time 2 teaspoons of orange zest and 1 teaspoon cinnamon). Keep that in mind for next week.
• Made 36 scones (divided dough into 6 parts, shaped that into rounds and fraction-pie-cut each of those pieces into 6 more pieces)