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Scones

(N.B. - The "Girdle" many scones are cooked on is a round flat plate of iron with a handle across it. They can be had at the Army and Navy Stores.) Balater Scones.

Take 1 lb. of best flour, 2 ozs. of best fresh butter, a teaspoonful of German yeast, a pinch of salt; mix all well in a basin, rubbing the butter well into the flour; use as much milk as will make it into a stiff dough; roll it out to about the thickness of 1½ an inch; shape and put on hot girdle. They will be ready to turn in 5 minutes. If wanted richer use more butter, or add cream.

Barley Meal Scones. No. 1. "The best in the World! J.F.C." (Learney. 1884.) These are as thick as breakfast toast, quite soft, mellow, and tender inside, almost like porridge; very mealy, flavoured on outside.

Take ½ lb. barley meal flour, and cook like porridge, but a longer time, "long, long-cooked" with water and a little salt, but no milk and no butter. First let the water boil up, then gradually stir in the meal, and boil well and long, stirring it continually. Do not make it too thick at first.

Have your board well floured with dry barley meal flour, and put the pot close to you on a trivet to be handy, for if the mixture chills it gets heavy and no baking recovers the lightness; take out only a spoonful of hot porridge at a time, and cover the pan up close again. Spread the spoonful out on the dry meal flour, do not work it, but just cover it over with more barley meal flour, cut it with a cutter, and place on the girdle at once; turn once. These scones once chilled, get tough. They should come up in a hot napkin made into a pocket, as for chestnuts.

Barley Meal Scones. No. 2. Thin and Soft.

These are made in the same way as Wheatflour Scones (see below) substituting barley meal for wheat flour, but they must not cook long enough to blister, and are well dusted with barley meal when done.

At Tillypronie we still think a tiny bit of best butter improves thick barley meal scones; but this is a heresy! Mr. Smith (Glenbucket) also says the barley meal scones are better for a little butter being put in the cold milk before it is heated. It makes the scones more mellow and tender. - C.C.

Beechwood Scones. (White or Brown.) To ½ lb. of flour, use 1 teaspoonful of Borwick's baking powder, and cream. For white scones, add an egg mixed with the cream, but no egg for the brown flour scones. Borwick's Scones. 2 lbs. flour, 2 whole eggs, a teaspoonful of baking powder, and a little salt; cream enough to mix it into a thick paste; roll out 1 inch thick. Cut into triangular shape, and bake in a quick oven.

Breakfast Scones - Three-cornered. (Isa. Emslie. 1895.) 1½ lb. of whole-meal flour, for crispness, a dessertspoonful of Yeatman's dried yeast, a pinch of salt. All mixed.

Then make it into a dough with a teacupful of cream. Handle as little as possible or scones will be tough. Cut into three-cornered scones, and bake in a quick oven, their colour should not be pale, but coffee-and- milk tint. If no cream is to be had, melt 1 oz. of butter and mix it in the teacupful of milk, but cream is best.

Brown Scones. No. 1. "Fardels." 1 lb. of brown flour, 1 spoonful Borwick's baking powder, 1 egg mixed up in a little cream or milk. Bake about 10 minutes in a slow oven, turning 3 or 4 times. Brown Scones. No. 2. (Matfen. 1876.) 1 lb. brown flour, ¼ lb. butter, and some cream, or 2 ozs. butter with milk instead of cream, a tablespoonful of baking powder, and a little salt. Rub the butter first in the flour, add the salt and baking powder, then mix with new milk to about the consistency of breakfast bread, and bake in a quick oven. Do not turn them in the oven.

They may be three-cornered or any shape, and of the thickness before baking of a 1-inch flat rusk. Pile them on a napkin.

Buttermilk Scones. (Mrs. Wellington. 1880.) Warm 2 ozs. fresh butter in a little pan over the fire till melted, then put in a teacupful of buttermilk, and a pinch of salt; mix with about 1 lb. of best flour into a slack dough, roll out, and spread on the girdle; flour both sides well; turn them over more than once as they cook. Serve like chestnuts in a warmed doubled napkin folded as a pocket, for breakfast.

Some add to the dry flour 1½ teaspoonful of best bicarbonate of soda. These scones are the size of the top of a breakfastcup, and as thin or thinner than a crumpet. (For another recipe for Buttermilk Scones, see Corfu Buttermilk Bread, under Bread.) "Dropt Scones." (Mrs. Jamieson, Auchentorlie. 1879.) (A kind of batter.) 1lb. flour, 2 ozs. fresh butter; work them together; add a good teaspoonful of dried yeast baking powder, and a little salt; then add milk enough till slack. Put dabs of it dropped from a spoon, on the buttered girdle. Turn once or more. These may also be baked in an oven. They should look like well-baked shop muffins - crisp outside. Serve on a warm napkin for breakfast.

If any are left, split and toast them dry, and serve in a rack for tea. They should be as thick as muffins, but not so large. (Another copy says: "To ½ lb. flour 1 oz. butter and 1 teacupful of buttermilk, 1/3 of a teaspoonful of soda, the dough not too stiff; add a whole egg at the last.") "Fardels." See Brown Scones. No. 1.

Girdle Scones.

Shaped like muffins. 1 lb. flour, a little salt, a very little sugar, ¹½ oz. baking powder, a bit of butter size of a walnut, as much milk as will make it into a stiff dough. Cook on girdle. Milk Scones. (Mrs. Wellington. 1877.) To 1 lb. of finest wheat flour allow a dessertspoonful of Yeatman's dry yeast powder. Warm 2 ozs. butter, add to it a teacupful of milk. Work the baking powder into the flour as lightly as possible in a basin; make a hole in the centre, and moisten all well with the buttered milk. Turn out, and shape in small round rolls, or as you like, and bake a nice brown on a baking sheet in the oven. Do not turn them. If the butter be fresh, add a little salt; and to make scones light work up the dough as little as possible, but mix thoroughly.

Some add 1 egg and a little sugar occasionally to make a variety. Orchard Leigh Scones.

These are 1 inch thick, and the size of the top of a teacup. Serve on (or in) a napkin. To 1 lb. of flour rub in 1 oz. butter and a pinch of salt. Mix with cream, and bake on a girdle; turn once.

Potato Scones. (Balcaskie. 1880.) Look like very thin pancakes well browned, but soft, not crisp, and come up warm, in a warm napkin folded like a pocket to hold chestnuts. Scones to be triangular shaped, i.e., a round, cut in quarters.

If you wish these scones to be good and light, you must boil the potatoes expressly for them and not let them get cold after boiling, but use as soon as passed through a sieve. Add butter, flour, and salt, but no milk, as the moisture of the potatoes is sufficient. Mix up thoroughly; roll out; shape, cut, and bake on the girdle. Turn them once, to cook both sides.

Sago Scones, for Breakfast. (Mrs. Young.) Boil a breakfastcupful of sago in 1 qt. of milk till it is like thick porridge; you then add a little salt to the milk, and be sure that all the grains of sago are dissolved, for if the sago be not thoroughly dissolved the grains will appear in the socnes and make them tough; let it stand till cold; knead it out quickly with fine flour into small scones; cut them with a small circle, and bake them on a hot girdle.

Soda Scones. 1 lb. flour, ½ pt. buttermilk, a little bi-carbonate of soda. Put the buttermilk in a basin at the side of the fire, or in the oven. When quite hot, stir into it the bi-carbonate of soda, just enough to make it effervesce, and, while effervescing, mix it with the flour.

Roll it out about ½ inch thick, and dust with a little flour. Cut it into round cakes with the cover of a small saucepan, and do them in a dry, clean, frying-pan a little raised from the fire.

Serve hot in a napkin.

Wheatflour Scones. Thin.

Boil some milk, putting in a little salt; when quite boiling, stir in some flour gradually, stir with spurtle, or spoon, all the time, then take the pan off the fire; knead out the scones with as little more flour as possible; cut them the size of top of breakfastcup with a round cutter, as thin as can be made not to break, and bake on a hot girdle. Serve hot off the girdle piled on a napkin, each scone as thin as a sheet of paper. Without being crisp or leathery when served, they should have little brown blisters on them.

Turn them once as they bake. "Sarah" mixed boiled potatoes in thin wheat flour scones, to make them lighter.