Comments on: Scone Wars

By: dan

dan — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 21:51:06 +0000

Hopefully I'll be releasing installments of Scone Wars more often than George Lucas would. Then again, I don't really plan to continue on to more and more sequels, in fact as I write this at the beginning, I'm thinking, maybe 4-5 more and then come up with my own recipe as the final result based on the research. We shall see. Thinking there must be an interesting version on the west side of the Atlantic Pond, a quick google search led to the recipe from Alton Brown on the Food Network's site. Now, I've only seen him a couple of times on Iron chef America and wasn't impressed by what he thinks is a sense of humor, but I understand he's got some other show where he investigates food, ingredients, recipes, something like that. So it seemed like he might be a good place to start. The recipe, surprisingly, is devoid of much instruction. It's got the ingredients, and then pretty much, "mix this all together, roll it out, cut rounds, bake", I could see that leading to all sorts of odd results, and indeed in the followup commentary to the recipe the responses run the gamut of praise and complaint for texture in particular - I imagine some folk threw all the ingredients into a mixer and ended up with a more bread-like substance than a scone. Some thought it was really salty, some thought it was too sweet, others thought the opposite. I was intrigued because it included two ingredients I hadn't seen in the other recipes - shortening and egg - as part of the mix. Here, another point lacking - what sort of shortening? My mom would have gone with Crisco back in the day. In my training over the years as a chef we always referred to that or margarine as "vegetable shortening", while without the qualifier we were generally talking lard or suet. I figure, Alton's a southern boy, right? (Actually, his Wikipedia entry says he's from L.A. but that he went to university in Georgia. But I didn't look that up beforehand.) So I went with lard. And the egg gives it a lovely golden color. That color continues over inside. And, I have to say, these were pretty impressive scones. In terms of method, I mixed them like I mixed most of the others - very gently - sifted the dry ingredients, rubbed in the butter and lard to get the same texture I'd use for biscuits, stirred in the wet ingredients with a fork and then just "chaffed" the mixture 3-4 times to smooth it all out. Rolled it out to about 1/2" thick (another missing instruction in the recipe) and cut out the rounds. Let them sit to activate the baking powder (another missing) for about 15 minutes. Then baked. Taste? Delicious. The egg and lard add something to it, as does the use of cream instead of milk. Basically, these scones are a bunch of fat held together by some flour and sugar - I mean, egg, cream, butter and lard! I miss the tang of the soured milk or cream and I think I'd like to retry these using sour cream instead of heavy cream. And, I think a light brushing of more egg or some milk to give the tops that sheen would be a nice presentation. My thoughts are coming together on this.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:00:43 +0000

In reply to SilBsAs.

I think either will work – I’ve used both as starters for homemade yogurt so both clearly have active cultures. Obviously, unsweetened and unflavored is the direction to go here. You can just use 0000 flour here for cake flour, it’s nearly as light and lower in gluten – I’ve found it works well. And some of the dieteticas have even lighter flour for cake and pastry baking.

By: SilBsAs

SilBsAs — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:46:26 +0000

For active culture yogurt you mean Yakult or similar? or just no flavored yogurt such as Dahi?
Thanks for the tips! I’m now trying to substitute cake flour with flour+ cornflour…hope it works!

By: dan

dan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:31:04 +0000

In reply to SilBsAs.

Exactly – I’ve found that the standard 360ml containers of cream here work perfectly – add the juice of one lemon and a half teaspoon of salt and let it sit out at room temp for about 4-5 hours until thick and tangy. Then refrigerate it and use as needed. But creme fraiche is different – for that what I’d do is take the same cream and add a tablespoon or two of active culture yogurt to it, no salt, and let it sit out overnight.

By: SilBsAs

SilBsAs — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:02:36 +0000

Oh I loved this post! I just bought Bouchon Bakery book and wanted to make their scones, but they use cake flour and creme fraiche which I don't know how to replace them here in BA! I LOVE Nick, I have 2 or 3 of his books and he's an amazing teacher..lucky you! How did you got sour cream? cream+ lemon juice?