I felt like scones

I got up early the other day and wondered what I should do. I didn’t want to be mopping and as I sat there thinking for a bit, I decided to make some scones. It was a recipe I tried a few times before but I have not made them for more than a year.

I remembered the first time I tried scones. I was in Australia, visiting an ex-colleague. He had invited me to his home and while we were chatting, his daughter came into the dining room to inform that she was going to bake some scones for tea.

I have seen scones sold in cafes and bakeries but at that time, I had only tried them once before but I didn’t have much of a good memory of its taste as it was hard and bland. When the daughter announced that she was baking them, I had my reservations. But then I thought, they have scones for tea everyday, it shouldn't be that bad.

My ex-colleague asked if I would like to join her daughter in the baking process and I was happy to as I was curious. I went into the kitchen, and she had already mixed the flour and stuffs. She was in the process of sort of kneading but not really kneading. Then, she went on to pop them out from the dough using a cup and placed them on the baking tray. An interesting process I thought.

While the scones were baking, an amazing buttery and fragrant aroma filled the home and I was excited to try. Within a few minutes, the scones were freshly baked and served with clotted cream and jam. They made their own clotted cream too.

My goodness, they tasted divine! The scones were buttery, soft and warm. The pairing with clotted cream and jam completed the taste of divinity of different texture. Ever since then, I loved scones, but only the buttery and soft ones.  After the trip, I did try making scones but they turned out to be hard as rock. Not buttery, not soft and not flaky. Just hard.

But about two years back, I braved myself to try again. I searched for a possible recipe and found one that looked doable. It turned out well and I decided to try it again.

I searched for the particular recipe online using some key words that I sort of remembered from before and found it. I scrolled through to see if I had the ingredients. Flour, check, butter, check, baking powder, check, salt, check, sugar, check. Darn, I was missing milk. But I remembered I had some soy milk, which I had tried once with this recipe, and it turned out pretty alright.

I took out the ingredients from my pantry and fridge, placed them on the kitchen table, took out a stainless steel bowl and started measuring them out. First part of the recipe was to measure out two cups of flour, four teaspoon of baking powder, half teaspoon of salt and a quarter cup of sugar. It said to pulse in a food processor but I was too lazy to take out the food processor. I just mixed them in the bowl with a fork.

Next, was to add the butter into the dry mix of flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, and mix them up until they look like breadcrumbs. This was quite fun to do, squishing the butter into the floor until they become flaky.

For the next step, I beat one egg with two thirds cup of milk, saving two tablespoons of it for egg wash later, while adding the rest of the mix into the flaky buttery flour mix.

I combined them together until they form a rough dough and then knead it a little. I read in many places that the dough should not be over kneaded, else the scones will be hard to eat, ah that was why my earlier scones were hard.

I pressed the dough down lightly to about one centimeters of height, just enough to form the scones and took my smallest cup to do the favourite part of the scones making process which was to pop them out one by one. The recipe asked to roll into an inch height but I wanted to make more scones as opposed to taller scones.

I managed to pop out about 10 pieces of scones to be baked and placed them onto a baking paper lined tray before popping them into the preheated oven. As I popped them out from the cup, I could feel the lightness of the dough which was a good sign.

While they were baking, the aroma was so buttery-ly amazing as we waited excitedly for the scones to rise. At first, there was no aroma and I thought I might have done something wrong. But after halfway through baking, the aroma began to fill the room. It smelled like scones which meant partial success.

After about fifteen minutes, they were done! They didn’t rise as tall as the recipe but the most important thing was the taste.

Then, it was time to taste. We didn’t have clotted cream and thought adding butter would be just as good and it was, with jam, imagine the combination. Silky, slightly salty butter, with the sweetness and fruity taste of the jam hitting the palette.

The outside was slightly crisp while the inside soft and flaky. I was happy that I felt like scones because they were absolutely yummers as breakfast and it made my day that day.