Hi internet. Wow, it's rainy today. I am going to cover scones.
Google defines an English scone as "a small unsweetened or lightly sweetened biscuit-like cake made from flour, fat, and milk and sometimes having added fruit." This is accurate but doesn't really sound that appealing. In reality scones can be delicious, little buttery treats.
Scones in American coffeeshops or bakeries tend to be crustier in their exterior, and sweeter. Those are also great but not what we're covering here, although now that I think about it I should try to make those too...
This recipe is from Emojoie, a very good baker on Youtube. This recipe required a lot of precision, but I finally got it down.
Ingredients
-300 g flour
-3 tbsp (12 g) baking powder
-Pinch of salt
-75 g sugar
-75 g cold unsalted butter
-1 egg
-130 ml cold milk (this is 133.9 grams)
Equipment
-baking sheet
-parchment paper
-molds for cookies or similar
-pastry scraper (optional but recommended)
-pastry brush (optional but makes egg wash pretty)
Recipe
First off sift your flour and baking powder through a strainer into a large bowl. Then add sugar and salt. Cut your cold butter into small cubes, and add individual butter cubes to the bowl. Squish the butter with your fingers and mix with the flour, until there are no butter clumps remaining.
Then, beat your egg and add 25 grams of it to your flour mixture, as well as the milk.Combine the dough with a pastry scraper or your hands, until it is cohesive. Place the dough on your lightly floured workstation.
Pat your dough with your fingers. Stretch the dough and neatly fold it in 3 parts, folding in the left and right sections, sort of like you're folding a letter to fit an envelope. Do this 5 times, patting it and rotating it 90 degrees in between folds. You might find it useful to fold the dough using the pastry scraper (especially the first time).
Then cover the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. I usually use this time to tidy up my kitchen and put away ingredients, except for the egg and flour.
Once the 30 minutes is done, take your dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, and sprinkle it lightly with flour. Stretch the dough using a rolling pin to a thickness of between 2.5 and 3 cm. Take care to maintain the dough's rectangular shape.
Cut out shapes with a mold. So, in the video, the baker uses a 5 cm mold. This might work for you, but my molds are bigger on the top then on the bottom (the bottom is where the cutting actually happens). So when I used 5 cm molds as measured from the top, my scones were too small. When I used a 6 cm mold as measured from the top, the scones came out the correct size. TL;DR if your molds are the same width throughout, use 5 cm, otherwise aim higher, because size matters for scones (see Result section).
When you run out of things to cut out in your dough, just squeeze and fold the dough together until it becomes like a ball, and use the rolling pin to get it back to a thickness of 2.5-3 cm. Continue doing this until you have used up the remaining dough. Your last scone will probably be smaller than the rest.
Place scones on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet with your pastry scraper. With your pastry brush, use as much of the remaining beaten egg as you like to brush an egg wash on top of each scone.
Bake at 392 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes and then take them out.
Wait a little bit to break one open. They should naturally break in the middle. Then add your clotted cream and strawberry jam, or whatever topping you want, and enjoy.
Result
The scones are fluffy, buttery, just a little crumbly. They are so good as a little snack or for breakfast. I bought clotted cream from the fancy section of ShopRite. It is very heavy and goes really well with the scones. I also made strawberry jam by cooking strawberries, sugar, and water over the stovetop, as mentioned in the Emojoie's video.
One last note. If these scones end up kind of crooked, you might be making them too small. When I used my 5 cm mold, they came out crooked, even when I exerted purely downward force on the mold when cutting. The width of the scones helps maintain the stability of the scone, so they will expand in the oven upright. This took me a while to figure out. Also, if they are slightly bigger, they are softer.
I owed a coworker a cake for losing a bet and brought him these scones instead. He is British and said they were very good. So they are British-approved.
Please let me know if you try making scones. I need to bond with someone over this. Anyway, in my next post, I will probably be covering chicken tikka masala 😋 so stay tuned!
Tuck
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