Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Scones with Strawberry Jam











I have written about the scones we enjoyed in England last summer and the awful scones we had at the Crown & Crumpet in San Fran, but I've yet to write about my own scone recipe. My scones are more of the English style scones that are a biscuit like shape and texture. I don't much care for the triangular shaped scones that most cafe's and bakeries have and they always seem to be very dry, tasteless and covered in huge crystals of sugar. What's special about mine? I always use pure full fat unsalted butter. It's best to use unsalted to control the amount of salt in the recipe and most scone recipes don't call for much sugar, so it's good not to overdo it on the salt, especially for fruit scones. You also must use baking raisins. Most people don't know they exist, but you can buy Sunmaid baking raisins in 1 cup pouches in most grocery stores. They are much juicier for baking unlike those dry pebbles of raisins that come in boxes. They are great for scones, but also for oatmeal raisin cookies and even to put in your morning oatmeal. I use a scalloped biscuit cutter and you can also make different sizes. I usually do this to make some smaller ones more suited for afternoon tea vs. the bigger "breakfast size" scones with the larger biscuit cutter. When baked just the right amount of time, they are moist but not doughy, rise nicely and break apart perfectly without the need for a knife...aside for spreading on the clotted cream and strawberry jam! I enjoyed afternoon tea with Audrey last weekend and used the last of my homemade strawberry jam.

2 comments:

  1. Amanda, I have a scone pan...have you ever tried using one? I am wondering if they are as moist as the biscuit cut scones. I like the pan because it makes a nice shape, and I have a recipe book that includes recipes for this specific pan--just enough in each batch to fill the pan. Just curious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi! I think you're probably referring to the triangular shaped scone pan you can get (I know Nordic Ware makes them) for more of the Scottish style scones. Scottish scones tend to be more of a biscuit like sticky dough and these are much more firm and easy to cut out with a biscuit cutter like you see in the photo. I haven't tried to use one myself, but I think they would be fairly nice if you already have one. Otherwise, you can shape the dough into a rectangular shape and cut them into triangles (or even just squares).

    ReplyDelete