Other Scone-athon posts
Part 1: Hickory Smoked Nuts and Seeds scones
Part 2: Nutella Scones
It was grim and rainy outside, with the odd flurry of snow, and it's nearly the last week of term here. I wanted something simple but yummy to bake to wake me up this weekend. I'm determined to master scones now, and the ingredients are so cheap that I decided I could have a few goes...
The Recipe
This is the same recipe that I used the other day in my Hickory Smoked Nuts Scones, and it's a recipe by Audax Artifax that the Daring Bakers used for their January 2012 challenge. Audax wrote a huge amount on the art of scone baking after some tireless research (16 batches of scones! I'm exhausted after 4!) so I'd really recommend you head over to his site and have a good long read, because you'll learn so much. But, just for ease, I'll post my short and sweet version of it here.
140g plain flour
2 teaspoons (10g) fresh baking powder (I used 3 teaspoons, which is 15g, because mine's been open longer than 2 months)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I had some salted butter to use up so omitted this)
30g butter (preferably frozen and grated, alternatively just out of the fridge and diced)
Approximately 120ml milk
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).
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 (definitely no thinner and maybe even slightly thicker!).
7. Use knife to form squares or wedges, or use anything you can find as a circular cutter. I used a drinking glass in the end. You will have to do the rolling twice if cutting circles because you won't be able to do them all in one go, and the second ones won't rise quite as much because you've worked the dough more.
8. Place on baking tray and flour or glaze the tops if desired.
9. Bake for 10 minutes, checking at 8. They are done when the sides are set.
10. Immediately place on a rack (preferably, I don't have one so plopped them onto a plate) to stop the cooking process.
745 calories per batch
The First Batch
Oh dear, dear, dear. I finally understand why people have always had such trouble with scones.
"Door stops. Hockey pucks."
It browned up nicely and the texture of the top looks nice too. I haven't tried to eat one though. I don't think the problem here was anything with how I worked the dough, though it was too sticky. I think it was more that I just rolled them too thin. Using my 2.6 inch (7cm) scone cutter (which was actually one of those glasses you get when you finish a nutella jar) I got 7.5 scones, I believe, which going by the original recipe's sizes was too many - I should have been aiming for 5, maybe 6 at a push. It was probably closer to 1cm thick than 2cm thick too.
Luckily, because I knew that I probably had some experimenting to do I hadn't just doubled my recipe. Therefore it was time for another go.
The Second Batch
Scone-fection.
I'm making a lot of new scone based words today.
This is how I've always wanted to make scones. I ended up with 4 beautiful, perfectly risen, wonderfully tasty scones. 4. Well, 4 and a half, but the half didn't really meet either the beautiful or perfectly risen criteria. Basically, I think I'll be doubling the recipe in future so I'm looking at 9...
They just looked right; they looked how they look when my Nan makes them. Interestingly, I've since found out that she uses self-raising flour because she finds that baking powder gives them an odd taste, which I don't find, but I'm looking forward to watching her make them over the Easter Holidays. Maybe we'll each have to make a batch of our own scones and see whose wins...
Conclusion
I learned a lot about making scones today, but these seem to be the most important points:
1. Don't overwork the dough
2. Don't roll the scones too thin. 2cm should be your minimum, maybe even slightly thicker. Better to have a few good scones than lots of rubbish ones.
But overall, I'm so happy with the ones that came out well that I'll certainly be making them again!
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