Okay, only as I was submitting and rejecting titles for this post did I realize that I had unwittingly made a scone incorporating all three Spices.  Oh yes.  I have stumbled on a tribute scone to the band that rocked Sayles Boulevard from 1985 – 1988.  The Spices are so imbedded in my subconcious that I planned and executed a breakfast scone in their very image without even realizing I was doing so.  Awesome. 

If you are unfamiliar with The Spices, or are confusing them with the slightly more popular pop group The Spice Girls, here are some pictures for your clarification:

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The Spices mid-jam in Abilene, Texas, circa 1988.

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The Spice Girls showing off their fancy costumes and high-budget backdrop, circa 1998.

So you see, whereas The Spice Girls look old and tarted up in Cool Britannia, The Spices presents a wholesome, fresh, unmaterialistic face to the tweens who idolize them.

Some background: The Spices was comprised of Ashley a/k/a “Ginger,” Peden a/k/a “Cinnamon,” and the youngest of the bunch Lindsey a/k/a “Salt.”  Salt was lucky if she got to fetch us Cokes while we were rehearsing our #1 hit “Tee Tee on the Rocks” or if she got to bang on the bongos in the background of our video for ”Nobody Lives Forever.”  But, like actual salt, Salt enhanced the flavor of The Spices, especially when she contributed her heart-wrenching, roof-raising solo in “The Alamo”:

“Santa Ana was a bimbo / You-know-what-I-mean-you-know-what-I-mean-you-know-what-I-mean.”

Unfortunately, The Spices’ flame, though it once burned so brightly it overshone the myriad stars in a West Texas night sky, eventually petered out.  There is confusion about the group’s disbandment, but I think it had something to do with Ginger starting 6th grade and becoming too cool to play in a pretend band.

Anyways.  In memory of many good times, I present The Spices scone: a scintillating olio of black tea, cinnamon, candied ginger, and – of course – salt.

Experiment #3A: The Spices Scone.

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First things first: how to incorporate these flavors?  For the black tea flavor, I steeped 6 bags of Trader Joe’s Irish Breakfast Tea in a cup of whole milk.  As with the lavender, I brought the milk almost to a boil, covered it, steeped it, and finally removed it from the stove, part and parcel, to the icebox.  I also threw in two cloves for extra flavor.  There isn’t a lot to say about this part: of course steeping tea bags in a liquid worked.  That’s what those little bags do.

As for the cinnamon flavor, I simply added a tablespoon of ground cinnamon to the dry ingredients.  This may have been too much.  While I steeped a heck of a lot of black tea, the dominant flavor in this scone was the cinnamon.  Perhaps next time I will trim it down to half a tablespoon.  Also, I wish there were a more homey and creative way to incorporate cinnamon.  Perhaps I could zest a cinnamon stick?  Would that be tasty?  More authentic? 

The candied ginger flavor was accomplished by rolling candied ginger into the dough.  Next time I will probably incorporate it in the dry ingredients, a la the dark chocolate in Experiment #2C.  Because I cut this batch into sixteen pieces, instead of eight, it’s important to incorporate the filling into the dough at the dry ingredients stage, rather than rolling it in post-wet ingredients.  If I roll the filling into the dough and try to divvy the batch up into sixteen small pieces, some pieces are full of filling while others are just plain dough.  So I think, whenever possible, I should try to incorporate fillings with the dry ingredients.

And finally, the salt acted as the flavor enhancer it is, bringing out the muskiness of the cloves, the spiciness of the cinnamon, and the tanginess of the ginger.  Ah, salt!  (I just used the regular amount of salt called for in the original recipe).

The result was a mild, tasty scone that offered a nice respite after the explosion of dark chocolatey-ness in Experiment #2:

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I think it is best used as a breakfast scone.  I had one this morning.  It was delightful and reminiscent of cinnamon toast (but with a gingery bite!).  There is room for improvement (less cinnamon, more tea, maybe more ginger), but the unbalanced flavors were not egregious.  I think this is ideal for one of my Christmas gifts, paired with the honey butter recommended by Maman.  Hurrah!

A technical change I made: I buttered the rolling pin before flouring it.  This was the best idea EVER.  This “idea” of mine might be common sense to some of you, but it only came to me after several battles with sticky dough that tore apart as soon as I tapped it with my pin.  So I am ecstatic about this discovery.

Also, I’m having trouble getting my scones to stay upright in the oven.  Some of them always like to flop over and bake on their sides.  Any suggestions?

I’m ready to go back to savory scones.

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