S1E2 Technical: Scones
This week's technical challenge is... scones! Good old, easy, plain, sweet scones.
The recipe used for this challenge is by Paul Hollywood, and the bakers were only given a list of ingredients, nothing else. No instructions, no temperatures, no times. So, to be as authentic as possible, Evie found the recipe and wrote out an ingredients list. She even assembled the ingredients under a cloth for me! I wasn't allowed to look at any scone recipe all week, not even at the ingredients list as she was writing it.
*I did watch this technical bake when I watched the episode last week. As mentioned in my last technical, I have to watch them to make sure that I am recreating the environment as closely as possible.
All I had to work with was what was under that cloth, and I was given 1 hour.
Go!
Luckily, I have made proper English scones before, as I was living in England and discovered Cream Tea (basically an afternoon excuse to eat scones with jam and cream). I only made this kind of scone once, but I made cheese scones several times, so I was pretty sure I would be alright.
I set the oven. I wasn't given an oven temperature, but biscuits are almost a bread and need to be nice and hot, so I went with a nice, standard 425 F.
I started by measuring out my flour (reserving some for when I needed to turn it) and margarine, using my fingertips to rub them together to attain a crumb-like consistency.
I then added my egg, baking powder, and sugar and gently mixed it in with a wooden spoon. Next, I added about a third of my milk (oat milk), adding the rest in little increments until the dough felt sticky. I ended up not using all of my milk.
I then dusted my work surface with flour and turned out my dough. I remember needing to fold my scone dough last time, and Paul mentioned something about "chaffing" on the show, so I gave it a few gentle turns. Paul criticised several bakers on the show for overworking their dough, so I was trying to be as gentle as possible.
Evie had told me that I needed to produce 10 consistently baked scones, so I rolled my dough out until I thought that I could get that many circles punched out. By some miracle, I was exactly right, and was able to get exactly 10 scones out of that first roll. The dough was somewhere between 1/2 to 1 inch thick (depending on whether or not I know how much an inch is).
I lined a baking tray with parchment paper and transferred them over. Finally, it was time to apply the egg wash. On the show, I remember Paul being especially picky about the egg wash covering the top and not running down the sides, and I think I did all right with that, and then I sprinkled some salt over top. However, as I was sprinkling the salt, I realized that the recipe said "egg with salt" not "egg and salt" for the topping, so I was definitely supposed to mix the salt in with my egg wash. Oops. Oh well, into the oven!
I had no idea how long these were supposed to bake for, so I sat in front of the oven and watched them rise. Honestly, why isn't there a Netflix series about things baking in the oven? It's quite soothing.
I took them out after 19 minutes, deciding that the tops looked nice and golden. I transferred them to a cooling rack.
They were out of the oven and cooling and I still had about 15 minutes left, so I was worried that I had done something wrong, but Evie confirmed that I was done!
Final product:
Evie took this photo so that I wasn't allowed to hide any of the uglier ones at the back.
And now, judgement time.
Before I started this bake, Evie made a checklist of all the things that the judges were looking for, and all of the nitpicky instructions in the recipe. As I was baking, she was jotting down notes about things I was doing right or wrong. It was terrifying. Here's a list of all the things I did wrong:
- I didn't mix the eggs, baking powder and sugar thoroughly enough into the dough before adding the milk.
- I didn't add enough milk, the dough was supposed to be stickier than it was.
- I didn't grease the tray before lining it.
- I didn't mix the salt in with the egg before glazing the scones.
- I was supposed to bake them for 15 minutes (I was 4 minutes over).
Then we opened one up to do the taste test. Before breaking them apart, Evie told me that a scone was supposed to pull apart into 2 flat, even sides.
Success!
Here's Evie's final review: "Very yummy, the taste is almost perfect. They didn't rise as much as I thought they would have, and they were a teensy bit dry on the inside but I want another one. And they were very consistently baked."
So, more milk needed, less bake time needed, but overall, yummy!
For any Bake-Off fans, check out this amazing video of Mary Berry baking scones in 1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwkEkjAklzo
Recipe used:
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