{"id":17076,"date":"2020-05-19T14:52:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bakeschool.com\/?p=17076"},"modified":"2024-04-03T14:46:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:46:32","slug":"how-to-make-the-best-scones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakeschool.com\/how-to-make-the-best-scones\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make the best scones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The best scones are rich, tender, light and fluffy, and the worst scones are dense, dry, heavy, and hard to swallow. Find out how to make awesome scones, with tips and tricks to improve your recipe and technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ingredients to make scones<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scones are made from very basic baking ingredients<\/a>, which means you probably have everything you need to make the basic scone in your pantry and fridge. Here's a rundown of the components of scone recipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dry ingredients<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The dry ingredients to make scones include flour, chemical leaveners<\/a>, and salt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK and some other parts of the world, the flour you bake with could be plain flour (all-purpose) or self-raising flour. If you are baking with plain flour or all-purpose, you would have to add baking powder<\/a> and salt to your dough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-raising flour comes with those in the mix, so in recipes with self-raising flour, you probably won't add any baking powder or salt. If you have a recipe that calls for one or the other, and you want to swap them, make sure to check out this guide to baking substitutions<\/a> to help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Liquid<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the liquid ingredients to make scones, you have also options! Cream scones<\/strong> are made with flour, chemical leaveners, salt, a little sugar, and cream. Nothing more. The cream used is typically whipping cream with 35 % fat, though you could use double cream which has 40 % fat, or you could use half-and-half, with 15 % fat. All roads lead to scones, though depending on the fat content of the dairy you use, your scones will be more or less rich, and more or less tender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes cream scones can be made with a combination of cream and butter<\/strong>, which is what I like to use instead of straight cream. I find working a little butter into the flour from the beginning helps \"lighten\" the scones and leads to a more tender scone in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans often prefer to make buttermilk scones<\/strong>, using buttermilk instead of cream. Remember buttermilk is virtually fat-free. Scones made with buttermilk often have extra butter in the recipe to add back that richness. If you use buttermilk, you might want to also add some baking soda<\/a> to your dry ingredients (roughly 2.5 mL (\u00bd teaspoon) baking soda for every cup of buttermilk). Otherwise, your scones may not brown properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also make scones with milk, but given the lack of fat, you'll want to also add butter to your recipe. To replace 250 mL (1 cup ) of heavy cream, try adding 190 mL (\u00be cup) of milk and an additional 60 mL (\u00bc cup) of cold butter instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, the liquid ingredients might include an egg, as I did in the pear and chocolate scones<\/a>. That recipe has a lot more liquid than most and so it could fall into the drop scones<\/strong> category, where the dough can be scooped with a disher or muffin scoop to portion it out. No rolling needed! Instead I opted to do some rolling and folding with flour to yield a flakier scone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The key to a good scone is the fat which makes them tender and rich, and prevents them from ending up hard as a brick or awfully dry. The fat in your scones will:<\/p>\n\n\n\n