by Monster

Created on: January 13, 2008

Fresh baked scones, served with your choice of butter, jam, honey, or even clotted cream. What a delicacy, they are the perfect accompaniment for dunking in your tea or coffee.

Depending on where you live, the perfect scone can vary. From being lightly sweet or savory in England to being more sugary in North America. In the US, Scones tend to be more drier and crumbly than they are across the world. Sometimes they even contain fruit preserves, fillings, and even chocolate. They are often compared to having a similar taste and texture as a biscuit.

Here, I will demonstrate just how to make the perfect scone, and since scone recipes aren't as commonly found as cookies or bread, I figured that I could share with you my favorite recipe. Instead of giving you directions on how to make this particular recipe only, I will give you a Tip List that you can use for ANY scone recipe that you may have, including this one. In other words, these directions will be universal.

SCONES

2 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp Salt
1/3 cup Sugar
6 tbsp Unsalted Butter
3/4 cup Heavy Cream
2 Eggs

TIP #1 FREEZE THE FATS

Your goal in making scones is not to have a uniform mixture. You want crumbs of all different shapes and sizes, and some of your flour may not be covered in the fat. This makes for a more tender scone. The best thing you can do to ensure this is by freezing the fats before you use them. Whatever the fat may be butter, lard, shortening, all you need to do is portion it out and stick it in the freezer as you gather the rest of your ingredients.

TIP #2 SIFT THE DRY INGREDIENTS

Sift all of your dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In this case, for the recipe above, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and the sugar. If you choose to use some sort of spices, sift these along with the dry ingredients.

TIP #3 CUT IN THE FAT

This is one of the most important parts of the process. Take whichever fat you may be using, in this case butter, out of the freezer. Add it to the dry ingredients, and use your fingers to rub the flour and fat together. Some people use pastry cutters or forks, but it just doesn't work as well as your hands. Don't rub for too long there should be small crumbs of butter and flour the size of peas. Put the mixture into the freezer as you move on to the next step.

TIP #4 BEAT THE WET INGREDIENTS

In a separate bowl, whisk together your wet ingredients. Again, in this recipe, you would want to whisk together the cream and eggs.

TIP #5 MIXING AND KNEADING

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