Our second Saturday coffee/doughnut open house, but I didn't feel like starting a yeast dough Friday night, so I decided to bake scones, which are possibly my favorite thing in the world to eat. I had a bag of dried cranberries in the pantry, and found Ina Garten's recipe for cranberry-orange scones, which got rave reviews on the Food Network site.
Ina Garten's recipes are often a little over the top, and this one was no exception. I have no objection to three sticks of butter or a cup of cream, but adding icing was gilding the lily, if you ask me. Besides, I don't like icing on scones.
These scones were good, but not absolute perfection. One reason they were imperfect is my fault; the other is the recipe's.
My fault--they were too thin. I do this every time I make scones unless I keep a firm hand on myself. I just keep rolling, and the circle gets bigger and bigger. I tell myself, "These are going to be too thin," and then I say, "No, they're not, they'll be too small if I stop rolling now." I continue to have this boring conversation with myself until I cut the dough into triangles, at which point I see that they're going to be flat scones again, but it's too late to do anything about it.
The really annoying thing about these scones is that I had a chance to redeem myself with the second tray, and I did exactly the same thing second time around.
Then I had to stop myself from announcing to anyone who looked at the scones that they were too flat. You know, how your grandmother does: "Grandma, this turkey is fabulous!" "I think it's a little dry, don't you think it's too dry?" "No, it's perfect." "Well, I think it's too dry."
The recipe's fault: Four eggs in the scones, plus an egg wash. What kind of scone recipe uses five eggs? Not an authentic one. Why didn't I notice this? I was too smitten with the butter, eggs, cranberries, and orange peel to notice the surfeit of eggs. These scones were very light and tender, but had a distinct eggy flavor that tasted very unscone-like.
Now maybe if I'd used only two eggs and hadn't flattened them like pancakes, they would have been just about perfect.
7 comments:
Grandma...they were fine. Everyone ate them, didn't they?
Love your 'psycho heavy-rolling' monologue! You are too funny.
Really, they look lovely!
They look great! I wouldn't worry about the 'eggy' flavor too much and the egg wash is absolutely necessary. I did a batch of scones without the was once and they tasted great but looked like they were uncooked.
Your scones look great and being thin you get more crust which like muffin tops is the best part.
they look terrific! any leftovers?
Melinda,
Yes, you have a point--everyone did eat them, but you know how people are--they'll eat anything.
Lewis,
That's interesting--I don't think I've ever done an egg wash on scones before. It did give them a nice sheen, and the sugar that I sprinkled on top had something to stick to.
Doughadear,
You people are just too nice. But actually, now that you mention it, the crusty corners of scones are my favorite part.
Jini,
Oddly, there are no leftovers, given their imperfect nature. But we do have some leftover doughnuts, which Jim is doing his best to eliminate before next Saturday.
pancake scones or not, i'll eat them. i also have conversations with myself in the kitchen. they often sound ludicrous.
Pinknest,
I think conversations with yourself almost have to sound ludicrous, don't they? Especially if you're arguing with yourself.
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