Moist-a-licious scone recipe has been found. And what makes it so moist? A half-cup of sour cream and one ton of butter. Naturally.
I am a woman obsessed with scones. Yesterday, they were all I could think about. I came up with a list of tasty possible flavors:
- blue cheese / dried cherry / walnut
- candied pineapple / ginger
- sharp cheddar / bacon
- gorgonzola / honey date / (should I add citrus?)
- parmesan / sausage / rosemary
- manchego / fig / pecan
- dark chocolate / lavender
- monterrey jack / green chili / red pepper flakes (this idea is courtesy of my mom)
- mushroom olio / truffle oil
- feta / olive / rosemary
- black tea / ginger / cinnamon
- mozzarella / tomato / basil
The beauty of the scone is that you can either go down the sweet route or the savory route. There are innumerable possibilities. Dreaming up the possibilities is fun and makes me feel creative.
My mom is a brilliant cook and knows everything culinary. Or, if she doesn’t know everything, she at least knows where to find it. Within minutes of hearing my dry scone woes, she produced an e-recipe that claimed to remedy this arid dilemma once and for all. The solution? Chilled dough and a lot of extra fat.
Ach! This adds a whole new element of danger to my experiment. Not freezer burn, but weight gain. I’m single and approaching 30. The world mandates that I absolutely, under no circumstances, gain even one pound. Honestly, I have 20 to lose.
But I am still compelled to experiment with scones, fattening or not. The things one will put up with for one’s art (head hanging, heavy sigh).
Experiment #1A: Manchego / Fig / Pecan
I wanted a figgy scone because I had a basket of figs from Sunday’s farmer’s market sojourn. Maman (this is my mother) suggested manchego cheese and toasted pecans to go with. Armed with her advice and the cold, fatty scone recipe, I attempted this savory scone.
The deal with this new recipe is that all the ingredients must be very cold. That way, through the magic of baking chemistry, the resulting scone will puff up to be airy and light. The butter must be frozen, and even the flour should be chilled. So I prepped everything and stowed it in the icebox while I wandered off to read or something.
The next thing about this recipe – or any scone recipe – is that the baker can hardly touch the dough with anything. Seriously. Scone recipes warn that if you handle the dough too much your scones will come out flat. (Sidenote: this concept also applies to my hair.) You really should just slap at it a few times before pronouncing it fit to be baked.
Another thing, this recipe was a recipe for blueberry scones. Just sweet little blueberries. I was planning to make a tri-ingredient savory scone, so I would have to wing the manchego : fig : pecan proportions.
And finally, while this recipe yields approximately the same amount of dough as my first recipe yielded, the baker is only supposed to divvy it up into eight scones. Well, I was able to divvy up the first recipe into sixteen. I thought I could do the same with this recipe. Clearly the next sentence is going to be: I was wrong.
Verdict:
The new batter is delicious and biscuit-like. But the scones weren’t pretty to look at because of two things: 1) I overstuffed them with my three ingredients, and 2) I cut them up too small. This made some of the scones fall over, break open, and expose their stuffed underbellies to the harsh glare of that thing in the oven that makes it hot. However, the scones that stayed put were very tasty. The flavors worked well together (thank you, Maman!). The scones could have used more figs, which held up amazingly well.
Next time:
I will use more figs. I will roll out the dough so that it’s a little thinner. I will only cut it into eight pieces.
C’est tout.
