Despite the fact that it is the first day of National Novel Writing Month (and I'm participating for the 4th year), the fact that it is my last day of vacation and I haven't done even 1/4 of the stuff I'd planned, and that I wanted to simply kick back and write and relax today, I ended up succumbing to the lure of the cookbook and all my new cooking and baking implements (more on that later).
My Mother had been mentioning scones lately. Her grandmother and mother made them in the skillet (Scottish style, I guess). All the recipes and all the demos on cooking shows, however, have them made in the oven. I pulled out a few cookbooks to see if we had any skillet recipes (nope) but I started poring over the various scone recipes in the King Arthur Flour Company cookbook. It's really filled with all manner of amazing sounding recipes (daunting, many of them because I'm not a very experienced baker...). While Mom likes the sweet scones - berries, raisins, etc., I'm a fan of the more savory goodies.
So when I encountered a cheddar and scallion scone recipe - and had just watched Ina Garten make cheddar and dill scones - I couldn't resist.
I had purchased a plethora of new items from this great store in my town. It is a restaurant supply store, but it sells retail. Everything - and it takes up thousands of square feet - is amazingly cheap (well, not those mondo costly pans, but most everything else!). Over the course of two days I purchased: 3 seasoned cast iron skillets (medium, small and oh-so-cute teeny-weeny). I got a chef's knife (and yes, upon using it the first time sliced off a hunk of my left pointer finger including a third of my nail. Barely felt it. Nice to know my knife is sharp!) I also bought 1 silicone spatula, 6 assorted whisks ("piano wire" and the stiffer kind in 3 descending sizes including some adorable little ones for making elf pastries, I guess) 9 silver bowls - 4 small, 4 medium and 1 gargantuan; 2 tiny white dishes, 2 tiny sauce dishes, 1 salt shaker, 4 hot pads (assorted) 2 silicone spatulas, 1 covered glass salt dish, 2 small red square dishes, a round cookie cutter, and then, from the Corningware Outlet store, a Revere pan, 2 Pyrex small dishes, and a fabulous roll-up silpat like baking sheet. It has all the measurements for all sorts of pies and such. And it has conversions, too.(It's a Magic Dough brand pastry mat - see the illustration below).
The smallest of the dishes (white ceramic, silver, red square, sauce dishes) - I bought all of them because I've always got all the ingredients in their containers all over my very small kitchen. On TV all the "real" cooks have all the ingredients pre-measured in these various little containers so the stuff can all get tossed in with a minimum of time and no juggling of measuring spoons. So I've now got this fabulous assortment to use for that.
But back to my first ever attempt at savory scones. So I filled one of my new glass tumblers (forgot those - 2 small, 2 large) with a nice merlot, I pulled out all my new dishes and proceeded to sort out the ingredients. I was really happy with all my little dishes filled with great things, and used a new whisk for whipping up the eggs. "Rubbing in" the butter into the dry ingredients stumped me for a bit, but ultimately I just caressed the crap out of it and squeezed the 6 tablespoons into tiny shards (as Ina says, there should be some visible little bits of butter in your finished scone product). I'd shredded the cup of cheddar and later realized that I need to be a bit more generous. Since I hadn't patted the cheese down, what filled the 1 cup measure was probably less than. The King Arthur recipe called for scallions and cheese but I added the dill with a devil-may-care disregard for the recipe.
It was a new experience laying out this sticky but aromatic dough on the new measuring board (heavily floured mat and hands!) But I got it laid out, cut into triangles (though because I could not find a square cookie cutter no matter where I looked, I ended up cutting free-hand, which, admittedly, led to disparate sizes in my triangular scones).
In the process I discovered and tossed 2 old containers of baking powder and got my hands (including the bloody pointer finger)covered in dough, flour and ultimately Crisco.
But in went the scones and a mere 25 minutes later, the knife came out clean from the tummy of the largest scone and while they were not particularly brown (I forgot the egg/milk wash that would have helped, as per Ina G.) and while they needed more cheese and I would have prefered a bit of salted butter versus the unsalted variety that I had on my steaming hot scone, they were, in a word ...
Ymmmmmmmmmmm!
