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Cream Scones
2 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking power 2 teaspoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons butter 2 eggs 1/3 cup cream Mix and sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Rub in butter with tips of fingers; add eggs well beaten, (reserving a small amount of unbeaten white) and cream. Toss on a floured board, pat, and roll to three-fourths inch in thickness. Cut in squares, brush with reserved white, sprinkle with sugar, and bake in a hot oven fifteen minutes. Baking Powder Biscuit I 2 cups bread flour 5 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon lard 1 cup milk and water in equal parts 1 tablespoon butter Mix dry ingredients, and sift twice.
Work in butter and lard with tips of fingers; add gradually the liquid, mixing with knife to a soft dough. It is impossible to determine the exact amount of liquid, owing to differences in flour. Toss on a floured board, pat and roll lightly to one-half inch in thickness. Shape with a biscuit-cutter. Place on buttered pan, and bake in hot oven twelve to fifteen minutes. If baked in too slow an oven, the gas will escape before it has done its work.
A rich, egg-enriched scone dough of the Fannie Farmer school: cut into squares rather than rounds, glazed with egg white and sugar. It comes together in about ten minutes.
- Oven temperature"A hot oven" in books of this period is usually glossed as somewhere around 400-450F. Fifteen minutes at about 425F suits three-quarter-inch squares; check at twelve.
- Baking powder amountFour teaspoons to two cups of flour is heavy by modern standards. Two to two and a half teaspoons of modern double-acting powder will give ample lift.
- Cream"Cream" in books of this period may mean thin cream rather than heavy; either will work, with heavy cream giving a richer result. Combined with two eggs and four tablespoons of butter, this is a rich dough that will feel stickier than a biscuit dough.
- Rubbing in the butterKeep the butter cold and work quickly with fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Warm, fully blended butter is what produces a cakey scone instead of a flaky one.
- Handling"Toss on a floured board, pat, and roll" is deliberate: minimum working. Fold the dough over on itself two or three times at most, then pat it out. Overworking develops gluten and toughens the crumb.
- Thickness mattersThree-quarters of an inch is noticeably thicker than the half-inch specified for the baking powder biscuits on the same page, and gives the scone its high, split-topped rise. Do not roll thinner in the hope of more pieces.
- The glazeReserve about a tablespoon of the white before beating the eggs. Brushed on and sprinkled with sugar, it gives the characteristic glossy, lightly crackled top.
- YieldAbout nine to twelve squares, depending on how you divide the slab. Best eaten the day they are baked.