Scones - Once Upon a Chef (2024)

FAQs

What not to do when making scones? ›

Just a reminder: Don't overwork the dough or the scones will turn out rubbery – or worse, bullety and hard. Cut out your scones cleanly. Twisting the cutter can impair the rise. If you use a fluted cutter, you can't twist it.

1. Flour. Know what flour you should use! We recommend using all-purpose flour.

How to make scones rise high? Once you've cut out your scone shapes, flip them over and place upside down on the baking tray. This will help them rise evenly and counteract any 'squashing' that happened when you cut out the dough. Perfect scones should rise to about 2 inches high.

Why? When cold butter is rubbed into the flour, it creates flaky pockets of flavour (which soft, room temperature butter can't do).

Overworking the dough: when you overwork your dough, your scones can come out tough and chewy, rather than that desired light, crumbly texture. The trick is to use light pressure and only the work the dough until it just comes together.

Place pan of shaped scones into the freezer for up to 30 minutes before baking. This short rest relaxes the gluten, making scones more tender; and cold chills the fat, increasing flakiness.

"Once you've shaped your scones, chill them before baking," Youngman says. "You can use that time to preheat the oven so the kitchen doesn't heat up while you make the dough. The final chill relaxes the gluten which yields a tender texture.

Plain scones – made easy!

Self raising flour and cold butter – blitz 8 seconds. Add milk – blitz 8 seconds until ball forms. Turn dough out, knead lightly 10 times (no more), lightly roll across the top to smooth surface. Cut scones out, bake 12 minutes.

Method. Pre-heat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Stir in the sugar, add the butter and rub quickly into the flour, creating a fine breadcrumb consistency.

Heavy Cream or Buttermilk: For the best tasting pastries, stick with a thick liquid such as heavy cream or buttermilk. I usually use heavy cream, but if you want a slightly tangy flavor, use buttermilk.

Why do you put eggs in scones? ›

Scones can be made either with self-raising flour or with plain flour and baking powder. Sweet scones and cheese scones have an egg added to enrich them. Both will rise but whatever scone you make its important that they are handled lightly and not rolled too thinly.

Too much baking soda will result in a soapy taste with a coarse, open crumb.

Many quick scone recipes recommend self-raising flour, which contains a leavening agent that helps achieve the desired rise. Without this leavening agent, scones can become dense and heavy. However, you can opt for plain flour and add the appropriate amount of baking powder to your mix.

Why Are My Scones Flat? Expired leavening agents. Your baking powder and/or baking soda could be expired. Most scone and biscuit recipes call for quite a large amount of leavening, and if either are expired, your scones simply won't rise to beautiful heights.

Scones are considered ”quick” breads since they are leavened with baking powder or baking soda and cream of tartar. They may be plain, but often have a wide variety of sweet or savory ingredients. Scones should be golden on the outside and tender and flaky inside, like a slightly sweetened biscuit.

My scones have spread and lost their shape

The mixture may have been too wet or the baking tray might have been too heavily greased. Twisting the cutter when cutting the scones can also have this effect.

As well as the raising agent in the flour, baking powder adds a bit of lift to scones. Baking powder is a convenient choice as it is a ready-mixed leavening agent, generally made of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar (usually some cornflour too).