Fancy a Scone, Milady?

I suppose, having a phase in Lolita subculture and reading Victorian-era literature got me into a manic period of making food inspired by good ole British cuisine. For a tea drinker like me, nothing's more fitting to start my crash course in cuccina Britannia than with a batch of the classic British scones.

Scone is a tea-time staple. It's classified as a quick bread, which means that you didn't need yeast and proofing and all that fancy kneading to be able to make it. Now, how do you pronounce the word 'scone'?

When I watch BBC shows and anything Brit-centric or even Titli's Busy Kitchen, people pronounce 'scone' as 'scon' (as how one would pronounce 'John' or 'con'). That sounds weird, you might say. While other British people do pronounce 'scone' as 'scone' (meaning, 'cone' with an 's' before it), 'con' pronunciation is preferred by 2/3 thirds of the British population. Majority of the Scottish (99%) also lean towards this pronunciation /thanks, Wiki~/

It's funny to note that even Australians and Canadians pronounce scone in a similar manner. Of course, America always has to differ (with Americans preferring the 'cone' way of pronouncing it). There is also the debate of biscuits vs scones; but that's another food post :D

Scones originally didn't look like the ones in my photo. They were cooked in a griddle /girdle for the Scottish/ and they're the size of a plate. Scones become, well, scones when the plate-sized quick bread is sliced into triangles (photo from thekitchn.com). The circular ones didn't come to be until baking powder was made available to everyone. You could get scones pretty much where there's a neighborhood coffee shop /cough/Starbucks/cough/. But it's still more awesome to make them in your own kitchen :D

Classic British Scones

For my beginner's attempt, I used the recipe I found at the back of the murder mystery book I was reading (Laura Child's Dragonwell Dead). You know, for a bargain book it was extremely useful (^_^)d Her original recipe was Sweet Potato Scones. After failing in it twice, I just moved on to following her recipe minus the potatoes and explored other flavors on the Internet.

I remember the first I made scones very well. I was hanging out with my friends Justine and Kevin. We decided to have a tea party that ended in epic failure--one, we didn't have tea and two, I forgot to bring baking powder for my scones.

Since the tea-less tea party, I got fixated with making a proper scone (which Kevin always ridicules me with) and finally, here it is. I'm so bloody proud of meself (;///A///;)

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 stick of butter, chilled and cut into cubes

2 tsp of baking powder

1/4 cup milk

pinch of salt

2 tsp sugar

butter or corn meal for preventing the scone dough from sticking to the baking pan/sheet

milk for brushing on top of the scones (for a shiny finish)

Directions

1. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Follow with the other dry ingredients: salt, sugar, and baking powder.

2. Add in the butter and incorporate this into the dry ingredients until you reach a crumbly texture.

3. Make a mini well in the center and pour in the milk. Mix well with a spoon.

4. When it turns into a sticky dough, tip it into a floured surface.

5. Knead the dough very gently. And by gently, I mean like this (jump to 3:18).

6. Pat down your dough until it's 1/2 inch thick and cut 2-inch circles with a cookie cutter or a small glass (be sure to dip the edges in flour first to prevent the dough from sticking).

7. You could still gather the trimmings and make 2 more scones with it. Place them on a greased baking sheet.

8. People have different approaches to making the scones nice and golden. If you watched the learn2bake's video, you'll see that he made use of egg wash (beaten egg + milk). Most of the recipes I've seen usually just brushes the tops with milk. I brush mine with milk :D

9. If you got a conventional oven, cook the scones in 200 degrees C in 10-15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and scones have risen. If you're like me and you only have an oven toaster with a constant temperature, time it to 10-12 minutes and guard the batch well.

10. When you remove them from the oven, scoop them with a spatula and put them on either a wire rack covered with a clean tea towel or a big plate covered with a tea towel.

11. Arrange them to fit into the towel and let them cool while covered with the tea towel. This keeps them from going stale and preserves the fluffy texture.

Ta-da~

SCONES~

Slice them in half and put cream and jam or make finger sandwiches :D

This is the basic scone recipe. From here, you could go wild with your flavors.

Now, if you got a British recipe and is wondering what the bloody bonkers is a self-rising flour.

It's just 1 cup of all-purpose flour plus 2 tsp of baking powder plus pinch of salt. Sift them twice then store in an airtight container until you make another recipe that calls for it. I make them in big batches then store them for weeks. I think letting it 'ferment' makes it more rise-y :D