scones

 

     I am in love with the concept of afternoon tea. Even though I've never actually had a tea party, being Chinese and all. The closest thing to "tea as a meal" we have in our culture is dian xin (usually referred to by its Cantonese name, dim sum), which is like a Western brunch and is absolutely wonderful and amazing and I could talk your ear off about all my favorite foods at that meal, but it's not what I associate with "tea". When the phrase afternoon tea comes up, I envision clotted cream and jam and tiny little cucumber sandwiches. All perfectly dainty, all so old-fashioned, all as romantic as the novels I read about days gone by. And, of course, one has to have scones.

      I've made scones in the past. They've generally been alright - palatable, at least, if not the light, tender ones of my dreams. I usually ran into issues when handling the dough. I had to mess with it too much, rolling it out and using a wine glass to cut out circles and having them stick to the wooden cutting board I use for dough (I don't trust our counter top). I didn't know what to do, until I discovered this guide.

     Using the recipe on Audax Artifex, I produced the best scones that have ever come out of my kitchen. Even though my previous recipe included one and a half sticks of butter, it didn't produce a scone nearly as tender as this one, which uses a fairly modest amount of fat. Most of my success is probably because of an improved technique. Audax went into the science behind a good scone quite exhaustively (which I, being my nerdy, science-y self, loved. There's a reason Good Eats is my favorite Food Network show!), which helped immensely. I read all of the tips and troubleshooting help at least twice. I froze my grated butter (leaving behind a very messy grater in the process - I'll definitely freeze the butter before grating next time), triple-sifted my flour and refrigerated it, used a light hand when dealing with the dough, and refrigerated the shaped scones. There was a lot of downtime in this recipe!

     One caveat was that the outsides of the scones were rather crusty and hard, but this was likely due to my using too much flour when rolling out the dough. I'll use milk to brush the tops of the scones before baking next time. Overall, I was very impressed with myself. I cut a scone in half, smeared it with some homemade strawberry jam, and spent my morning in a quiet bliss. The scones may not have lasted until tea time, but they were delicious nonetheless.

Basic Scones (a.k.a. Basic Biscuits)

From Audax Artifex
Servings: about eight 2-inch (5 cm) scones or five 3-inch (7½ cm) scones
Recipe can be doubled

Ingredients
1 cup (240 ml) (140 gm/5 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
2 teaspoons (10 ml) (10 gm) (⅓ oz) fresh baking powder
¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1½ gm) salt
2 tablespoons (30 gm/1 oz) frozen grated butter (or a combination of lard and butter)
approximately ½ cup (120 ml) cold milk
optional 1 tablespoon milk, for glazing the tops of the scones

Directions

1. Preheat oven to very hot 475°F/240°C/gas mark 9. 
2. Triple sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. (If your room temperature is very hot refrigerate the sifted ingredients until cold.)
3. Rub the frozen grated butter (or combination of fats) into the dry ingredients until it resembles very coarse bread crumbs with some pea-sized pieces if you want flaky scones or until it resembles coarse beach sand if you want tender scones.
4. Add nearly all of the liquid at once into the rubbed-in flour/fat mixture and mix until it just forms a sticky dough (add the remaining liquid if needed). The wetter the dough the lighter the scones (biscuits) will be!
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board, lightly flour the top of the dough. To achieve an even homogeneous crumb to your scones knead very gently about 4 or 5 times (do not press too firmly) the dough until it is smooth. To achieve a layered effect in your scones knead very gently once (do not press too firmly) then fold and turn the kneaded dough about 3 or 4 times until the dough has formed a smooth texture. (Use a floured plastic scraper to help you knead and/or fold and turn the dough if you wish.)
6. Pat or roll out the dough into a 6 inch by 4 inch rectangle by about ¾ inch thick (15¼ cm by 10 cm by 2 cm thick). Using a well-floured 2-inch (5 cm) scone cutter (biscuit cutter), stamp out without twisting six 2-inch (5 cm) rounds, gently reform the scraps into another ¾ inch (2 cm) layer and cut two more scones (these two scones will not raise as well as the others since the extra handling will slightly toughen the dough).  Or use a well-floured sharp knife to form squares or wedges as you desire.
7. Place the rounds just touching on a baking dish if you wish to have soft-sided scones or place the rounds spaced widely apart on the baking dish if you wish to have crisp-sided scones. Glaze the tops with milk if you want a golden colour on your scones or lightly flour if you want a more traditional look to your scones.
8. Bake in the preheated very hot oven for about 10 minutes  (check at 8 minutes since home ovens at these high temperatures are very unreliable) until the scones are well risen and are lightly coloured on the tops. The scones are ready when the sides are set.
9. Immediately place onto cooling rack to stop the cooking process, serve while still warm.