Other Scone-athon posts
Part 2: Nutella Scones
Part 3: Plain Scones
It's quite rare at the moment that I bake just for me. In fact, I don't think I've baked just for me in my life (I don't count pancakes, they're cooking, not baking). So today, when my free Graze box turned up (a full review of this to follow once I've eaten the other bits) and I discovered they'd sent me Hickory smoked nuts and seeds, something I wasn't that enamoured with on its own, I decided to make it better by baking it into something on a small scale. This was MY free graze box and I was going to eat it all myself.
A savoury quick bread? Hmm, the pot seemed a bit small. Then I realised, after the success of cinnamon toast earlier this week, that my breakfast routine did still need some shaking up. I wanted scones.
I'm going to let you in on a secret. I've joined the daring bakers. I couldn't do last months because I signed up too late but I get my first challenge tomorrow (which my boyfriend and family know all too well because I've been reminding them every day for the past week. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight... I'm more excited about this than I was about xmas). But while waiting, I've been going through the past challenges and I came across Audax from Audax Artifax's extremely exhaustive scone recipe. This is a treatise on how to make PERFECT scones. Cheaply. And the recipe could easily be halved. Thank you very much, Audax!
So I made 3 scones, and, like Audax promised, they were great. I can't wait to try this recipe as standard jam and cream scones, and I think that it could even be put to use for cricket teas instead of buying the Tesco value ones in bulk - I think it would work out ALMOST cheaper and taste infinitely better. I calculated that this cost me approximately 30p to make 3 scones. Let me repeat that. THIRTY. PENCE. 10p a scone. And that was using real butter (we'd probably cheat and use the hard stork for cricket scones) and we'd buy flour in bulk, which I didn't, I can only buy 500g bags because that's all our Tesco's sells and its all I can manage to cart the mile I walk home (carrying a 5 litre bottle of water one day, plus all my other shopping, was not fun). After scaling it up to 64 scones, using good quality flour and butter, I worked out it would cost 6 point 3 pence a scone. That really isn't bad at all... but sadly Tesco value manage to undercut us at 4 and a half pence per scone. Really, though, is there any comparison?
Anyway, I had decided to make the scones. Now, I've finally proved that I have food on the brain far too much. Midway through my IM conversation with my boyfriend, I proceeded to reel off NINE foodie puns. All entirely based on the scone recipe I'd just written out. Though in fairness he started it.
Me: right, lecture written up.... it's scone time
Boyfriend: so you will soon be... scone?
Me: yes, but not scone for good
Boyfriend: but you'll be scone for a good raisin
Me: and i'll be breadcrumbin' back
Me: i shall return sift-ly
Boyfriend: oh dear
Me: i butter not take long....
Me: yours was better
Me: I knead to practice my puns
Me: they're a bit half-baked
Boyfriend: damnit
Boyfriend: just thought that
Me: i should stop milking it.....
Boyfriend: ugh
Me: i bet your eyes are starting to glaze over
Me: ...... dough.
Me: anyway, i'm going to go before the pun god smites me
It's quite rare at the moment that I bake just for me. In fact, I don't think I've baked just for me in my life (I don't count pancakes, they're cooking, not baking). So today, when my free Graze box turned up (a full review of this to follow once I've eaten the other bits) and I discovered they'd sent me Hickory smoked nuts and seeds, something I wasn't that enamoured with on its own, I decided to make it better by baking it into something on a small scale. This was MY free graze box and I was going to eat it all myself.
A savoury quick bread? Hmm, the pot seemed a bit small. Then I realised, after the success of cinnamon toast earlier this week, that my breakfast routine did still need some shaking up. I wanted scones.
I'm going to let you in on a secret. I've joined the daring bakers. I couldn't do last months because I signed up too late but I get my first challenge tomorrow (which my boyfriend and family know all too well because I've been reminding them every day for the past week. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight... I'm more excited about this than I was about xmas). But while waiting, I've been going through the past challenges and I came across Audax from Audax Artifax's extremely exhaustive scone recipe. This is a treatise on how to make PERFECT scones. Cheaply. And the recipe could easily be halved. Thank you very much, Audax!
So I made 3 scones, and, like Audax promised, they were great. I can't wait to try this recipe as standard jam and cream scones, and I think that it could even be put to use for cricket teas instead of buying the Tesco value ones in bulk - I think it would work out ALMOST cheaper and taste infinitely better. I calculated that this cost me approximately 30p to make 3 scones. Let me repeat that. THIRTY. PENCE. 10p a scone. And that was using real butter (we'd probably cheat and use the hard stork for cricket scones) and we'd buy flour in bulk, which I didn't, I can only buy 500g bags because that's all our Tesco's sells and its all I can manage to cart the mile I walk home (carrying a 5 litre bottle of water one day, plus all my other shopping, was not fun). After scaling it up to 64 scones, using good quality flour and butter, I worked out it would cost 6 point 3 pence a scone. That really isn't bad at all... but sadly Tesco value manage to undercut us at 4 and a half pence per scone. Really, though, is there any comparison?
Anyway, I had decided to make the scones. Now, I've finally proved that I have food on the brain far too much. Midway through my IM conversation with my boyfriend, I proceeded to reel off NINE foodie puns. All entirely based on the scone recipe I'd just written out. Though in fairness he started it.
Me: right, lecture written up.... it's scone time
Boyfriend: so you will soon be... scone?
Me: yes, but not scone for good
Boyfriend: but you'll be scone for a good raisin
Me: and i'll be breadcrumbin' back
Me: i shall return sift-ly
Boyfriend: oh dear
Me: i butter not take long....
Me: yours was better
Me: I knead to practice my puns
Me: they're a bit half-baked
Boyfriend: damnit
Boyfriend: just thought that
Me: i should stop milking it.....
Boyfriend: ugh
Me: i bet your eyes are starting to glaze over
Me: ...... dough.
Me: anyway, i'm going to go before the pun god smites me
All in all, this took me about 10 minutes to make, and I washed up while they cooked. Mine didn't rise quite as much as Audax's, but I'm going to have so much fun practising that I really don't care this time round ;) They're certainly not super dense, and really I rolled it out a bit thinner than I should have (well, patted, I'm a student, I don't have a rolling pin), sooo... it was to be expected. I think I also kneaded them very slightly too much, so will cut back on that next time. Finally, Audax recommends frozen grated butter. This would be fine, apart from my lack of 2 important things. 1) A grater. 2) A freezer. So I just used the hard butter straight out of the fridge and diced it.
Mine cooked in 8 minutes flat, and smelled gorgeous. Then, in the interests of having one to photograph, I supposed I ought to break one open, butter half of it, and photograph it. The only problem was that I got distracted and buttered both halves (though it was the smallest of the three). Obviously I couldn't then waste the buttered half. My camera had a Lazarus moment and lasted long enough for me to get some shots, and it's sunnier here today so I could use the natural light better.
With butter on, delicious. I think it's going to be bloody awesome with some Nutella on for breakfast tomorrow! (Update: it was. It certainly was. *drools*)
In closing, I decided to try some of the nuts while they were being chopped up to pop in... and then realised that Graze knew me better than I knew myself because they were actually really nice. Whoops. Good call, guys... still, they work well in scones too.
Audax's Awesome Scone recipe, with nuts and seeds
You can find the original HERE, for those who aren't daring bakers (it's also available in the private forum). Here I've provide my scaled down recipe with a shortened method. I would highly recommend reading Audax's, though, as he put a huge amount of effort into getting perfect scones and I learned so much from reading it.
Makes 2-3 wedges or 4 round scones.
70g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
15g butter (preferably frozen and grated, alternatively just out of the fridge and diced)
60ml milk
1/2 tbsp milk to glaze, or flour to dust
~35g Mixed nuts and seeds (I used Hickory smoked cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds from a Graze box)
1. Preheat oven to 240 degrees c.
2. Triple sift the dry ingredients from a height.
3. Rub butter into dry until resembled beach sand (see Audax's recipe if you want a different texture). Stir in the nuts.
4. Add nearly all the liquid and stir until a sticky dough is just formed. Add the rest if needed.
5. Turn the dough onto floured board and knead softly 4 or 5 times.
6. Roll/pat out to 2cm thick. Will have to do this twice if doing circles.
7. Use knife to form squares or wedges (you could use a cutter to form 4 scones. I don't own cutters. Again, student.)
8. Place on baking tray and flour or glaze the tops.
9. Bake for 10 minutes, checking at 8. They are done when the sides are set.
10. Immediately place on rack to stop cooking process.
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