4 -- Scones delight

Scones are the savoury Western biscuit-like cakes often served as breakfast or afternoon tea. I was completely obsessed with scones after the first time I had them in Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) on one Sunday just before I attended the morning service last year. The butter and strawberry jam smeared scone was indeed lip-smacking and till today, the taste still vividly appears on my mind. I have tried making it once but it turned out to be a total failure. The scone was more like a rocky hard stone than a soft, buttery and crumbly pastry. I got the recipe from a cookbook in which the author is one of the most popular chefs in my country. At first, I was not very certain if my method of baking was wrong, so I decided to give it another try this afternoon. Again, I chose the best recipe which were highly recommended among people who love baking from the website. The link is already pasted below and the video also clearly shows how you could make scones without much error. I personally followed everything taught by the chef and the outcome was quite excellent. Now, I can enjoy eating scones whenever I crave for them...


Chef John's Scones Recipe

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chef-Johns-Scones/Detail.aspx?src=VD_Summary&scale=8&ismetric=1
Ingredients for dough:

• 220g of all-purpose flour
• 30g of white sugar
• one teaspoon of baking powder
• sprinkled salts
• 70g of unsalted frozen butter
• 120mLs of milk
• 60g of yogurt (I chose blueberry yogurt)
• 50g of raisins

Egg spread : one lightly beaten egg + 10mLs of milk

1. Preheat oven to 200 degree Celcius. 
2. Whisk flour, white sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Grate the frozen butter and mix them together until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 
3. Stir together the milk, yogurt, and raisins in a small bowl; stir into flour mixture with a fork until just moistened and holding together. 
4. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into rectangle. 
5. Fold the rectangle in thirds. Turn dough a half turn, gather any crumbs, flatten back into a rectangle, and repeat. Cut into eight pieces and place each scone on a silicone baking mat. 
6. Whisk egg and 1 tablespoon milk together in a small bowl; brush mixture on top of each scone. 
7. Bake scones in the preheated oven until risen and golden brown, about 15 minutes. Remove and transfer to cooling rack. 

I copied and pasted the photo from Wikipedia. This was exactly the same one I had during the Cameron highlands trip in early May this year. So fantastic...!

This time, I did not take many photos of the making process because my hands were full of batter and dough. So, I only took two photos of them after I finished my job. The mistake that I made in the past was I used the defrosted butter. That was the reason why I used more flour than the stated amount in the recipe. It is very important to use the frozen butter so that the dough will not be too soft (liquid-like). Besides that, the butter has to be grated into shreds so that it can be well mixed with the flour mixture.

So, these were the scones that I made this afternoon. The scones here do not look appealing as the ones shown on websites because of the low photo quality.... They are not round in shape because I followed the chef style. He made them into square shapes.

While they were still trying their best to be 'mature'....

The texture inside...

And................. this was the dish that I had with my father this afternoon at the coffee shop (Yummy Kafe) which was near to the bakery ingredients shop. The cafe also has one of the best roti canai in Sibu. The beef noodles and dumpling noodles soup are very delicious as well. The dish below is called Lu Guo Tiao in Mandarin. It tasted indeed scrumptious.

.......... To be continued........