The Hard Truth About Scones

There are many things that I learnt from books, amongst them baking and quilting. I made my first attempt at quilting after just reading a few quilting books & magazines from the library. Very often, I bravely tried baking cakes and bread just by following the instructions from recipes. Most times I succeeded but sometimes I failed.

The fact is, there are many things in life that are not taught in the books. We have to learn them through experience, gained either from our own mistakes or through someone else's experience. Here's the lesson I learnt from scones.

I loved scones with whipped cream and strawberry jam. One night, XX's kindergarten organised a Mother's Night and at the end of the session, the teachers brought out some scones (supposedly made by the children earlier in the day) as a treat. They were scrummy! I chanced upon the recipe and it was amazingly simple (or so I thought). There were only 3 ingredients: Flour, lemonade and cream. I decided to make some scones of my own and invited some friends and their kids/mums over for high tea. 

I spent the whole morning but the first batch of scones failed miserably. They were hard as stones. What went wrong? I measured the ingredients accurately and added the lemonade and cream to the flour accordingly but the dough was so sticky. How do I roll it out and cut out a round shape if it keeps sticking to my fingers? I started to add more and more flour to the mixture thinking perhaps I didn't use enough. Big mistake. It does not get less sticky at all. I then recalled that many years ago, I spent a long time trying to make scones too and I had the same problem - sticky dough that clings to your fingers as you tried to knead it. Something was wrong and after all these years, I still didn't know what. 

Luckily, thanks to the World Wide Web, I don't need to go very far or wait very long to get help. Thanks to Youtube, I need not pay for a crash course on how to make fluffy lemonade scones. Watching this video helped me so much. I finally knew where my mistake was.

   

See, recipes don't tell you to use a knife instead of a spoon to mix the dough. They don't mention that you can pour the dough out when it looks like a batter. They don't describe how you simply sift lots of flour over the whole lump and then pat pat pat press press press turn it over shape shape shape into a slab. Press your cookie cutter in and voila, here comes one scone. If a picture speaks a thousand words, a video speaks millons.

After watching the video, I was encouraged to make a second attempt. It only took me a few minutes to combine the three ingredients and cut out 13 scones. How easy it was and I would have never known!  

The end result. Fluffy and soft scones. Thank you unknown Cantonese lady from Hong Kong:)



Devonshire Tea for breakfast


Hmm, wonder if there are any videos on Youtube on how to bring up good children?