1.28.2012

Daring Bakers' January Challenge - Scones

I thought the procrastination of my first Daring Bakers' Challenge was just a one time thing.  
It wasn't.  'Cuz I just finished the January one...a day late.  

Audax Artifex was our January host and mastered light and fluffy scones (or biscuits as we know them in the States) so that we could master delicious and perfect biscuits in our own kitchens.



I've made biscuits from scratch before, so this wasn't entirely new to me, but some of the techniques were.  

I've never triple sifted my dry ingredients...
or grated frozen butter...
or chilled my flour...
or baked them at such a high temperature

The results really were the lightest biscuits I've ever gotten from scratch.  And as you can imagine, there are endless variations to these.


We served ours with chicken pot pie filling for "upside down chicken pot pies".  Next I think I'll make an asiago cheese variation.  Yumm...........


Basic Biscuits
  makes 6-8 biscuits

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp frozen grated butter
1/2 cup cold milk
1 Tbsp milk (optional for glazing biscuits)

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.  

Triple sift the dry ingredients and place in the fridge to chill.  After chilled, rub the frozen butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs with a few pea size pieces (if you want tender biscuits, rub until mixture resembles coarse sand).  Add the liquid and gently mix just until dough comes together.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board.  Knead gently (about 4 or 5 times) until dough is smooth.  Pat the dough into a 4-inch by 6-inch rectangle.  Stamp out biscuits using a well floured 2 inch biscuit cutter.  Alternately, you can cut the dough into wedges or squares with a sharp knife.  

Place dough with sides barely touching onto baking pan.  Brush with milk.  Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.  The scones are ready when the sides are set.  Immediately move to a cooling rack.  

Buttermilk Biscuits:  add 1/4 tsp baking soda, increase butter to 4 Tbsp, and replace milk with buttermilk

1 comment:

  1. I'm so glad that you got such stunning results from the recipe well done. Lovely photos as well. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

    ReplyDelete