I tasted the most delicious scones at Miss Marple's Tea Room in Mount Dandenong, Melbourne. So, I decided to try to make some myself.
If you need to bake scones, you need to refer to the best person. I am talking about a real English woman by the name of
Delia Smith - Britain's version of Martha Steward minus the criminal record. My sister thinks she is the guru and swears by her recipes.
Anyway, the plan was to bake some scones for dad on Father's Day tomorrow. Today was practice round. I think practice is something I need a lot of!
I tried to follow the recipe book to the "T". But, despite the best of intentions, things do not always go to plan.
The ingredients are simple enough. The instructions were simple enough...that too I messed up:
"Turn on the oven in Step 1."
Forgot to turn on the oven until I started to roll the dough.
"A baking sheet, greased in Step 2."
I always thought this is a rather messy step - smearing butter on the baking sheet. So, I decided to improvise and use greaseproof paper. Read further for the results of this.
I guess I was also anxious to get into the action in Step 3 - Sift the flour.
"Turn dough out onto a floured pastry board and roll it out to a thickness of not less than 2 cm using a lightly floured rolling-pin."
Ok. I am very bad at estimation. I think I cut the thickness at probably 1 cm. Turned out looking like a biscuit.
"Place scones on the greased baking sheet, dust each one with a little extra flour."
The night before, I thought this was an interesting and exciting step. Stimulated my imagination of the old English country kitchen. Don't know why you need to do it but I totally forgot when the time came. I guess I was anxious to send them into the oven.
"Bake near the top of the oven for 12-15 minutes."
After 5 minutes, there was a slight burning smell....followed by thin smoke.
I was dead worried. Was that because of the greaseproof paper that I placed the scones on, without greasing it? I think so.
I opened the oven twice during baking to check what was going on. I couldn't see much because hot air and smoke was billowing out.
Ok, we learnt in cooking class at school that opening the oven during baking is an absolute no-no because it may lead to your cake sinking. But, I think this was a matter of life or death. The oven could be on fire!
Waited anxiously for an agonising 5 minutes before I took my scones out.
My first smoking scones!
Served on handpainted
Apple side plate by Beeworks
Lessons Learnt
Set the oven at a lower temperature. Our trusty old oven cannot be compared to Delia's state of the art oven.
Remember to grease the baking sheet.
Remember how 2 cms look like.
Remember to dust some flour on the scones before putting them in the oven (eventhough you don't know the reasons for it).
Never open the oven during baking.
The Aftermath
I went on the net and found
Delia's scone recipe with pictures. Now I know what 2 cms look like!
Oh... how did my little scones taste like?
Crunchy on the outside and soft inside.
Perhaps from smoking scones to Beeworks Tea Room?
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