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Oatmeal Scones
To 1 cupful of well cooked oatmeal add 1 cupful of milk, stirring until thoroughly mixed. Then add a pinch of salt, 2 teaspoonfuls of sugar, 1 tablespoonful of melted butter and 1 cupful of flour mixed with 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
Now add as much more flour as is necessary to make a soft dough. Roll out an inch thick and cut in rounds or squares. Bake on a wellgreased griddle. Serve with butter and orange marmalade.
A thrifty way to use up leftover porridge, cooked on the griddle rather than in the oven. The dough is wetter than a standard scone dough, so heat control on the griddle is the whole game.
- The hinge: griddle heatAn inch-thick round of soft dough needs a moderate griddle, about 325-350F, held there for roughly 8-10 minutes a side. A hot pan will give you a scorched crust over raw, gluey middle.
- "Well cooked oatmeal"This means cooked porridge, cooled, not dry rolled oats or oatmeal flour. A cup of leftover breakfast porridge, thick rather than soupy, is exactly what is meant; if yours is loose, expect to need more of the extra flour.
- Flour quantity is deliberately openThe second addition of flour is not a measurement error. Depending on how wet the porridge is, count on another 1/2 to 1 cup. Stop when the dough just holds a shape and is still tacky.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons to roughly two cups of total flour is about the standard modern proportion, and appropriate here since the wet oatmeal is heavy.
- Oven optionThe same dough bakes well on a greased sheet at 425F for 15-18 minutes if you would rather not stand over a griddle. The crust will be drier and less chewy than the griddle version.
- YieldAbout eight scones cut in 2 1/2-inch rounds. They are best within a few hours; the oatmeal keeps them moist but they go dense once cold, and reheat better than they keep.
- Butter and saltA single tablespoon of butter and a pinch of salt make a plain, frugal scone, in keeping with the book. If the porridge was cooked unsalted, use a full 1/2 teaspoon or the result tastes flat.
Scones cooked on a griddle rather than in an oven are the older form of the thing: the Scots girdle, a flat iron plate hung over the fire, predates reliable home ovens, and "scone" itself is generally traced to Scots usage in the early sixteenth century. Oatmeal in the dough is likewise Scottish habit, oats being the everyday grain of the north where wheat was dear. What makes this a low-cost recipe is that it starts from leftovers: yesterday's porridge, stretched with a cup of milk and whatever flour is needed, turning a breakfast remainder into another meal. The marmalade at the end is the one small luxury, and also a Scottish note, Dundee having built a trade on bitter Seville oranges.