British Scones Will Transport You To A London Tea Room

Delish

Tall and fluffy, soft in the center and just slightly sweet, these British scones are more similar in texture to American-style biscuits.

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone, it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen studios.

00:03Welcome to Techniques with Tia,

00:05the show where I teach you essential kitchen skills

00:08to up your cooking game.

00:10Today, we are gonna be making

00:11one of my absolute all-time favorites, British scones.

00:16These essential tea time treats

00:19are pretty similar to American biscuits

00:22and they are darn tasty.

00:25Let's get started.

00:26To make our scone dough, the first thing that we're gonna do

00:33is combine all of our dry ingredients in the bowl here.

00:36So we have flour, all-purpose, some granulated sugar,

00:40some baking powder, and quite a bit of salt.

00:44We're gonna give these a whisk

00:46just to make sure that all of that leavener

00:48is evenly incorporated before we start to work in our butter.

00:53Now, I have here some cold cubed butter.

00:56It's very important that the butter is cold

00:59because all of those tiny pockets of butter

01:03are going to release steam

01:05and that steam is gonna push up those layers in the scone

01:08and help them rise.

01:10I like to rub my butter in by hand.

01:12You want these flat shards, it's important.

01:15We're not looking for pulverization and little chunks.

01:18We're looking for some chunks, some shards,

01:22some other irregular pieces that I don't know the name of.

01:25This is just kind of fun to get in and feel the dough

01:28or the butter-flour mixture, if you will.

01:31This is the other thing.

01:32When you use your hands, you can find

01:35and purposefully squash the big pieces that are left.

01:39And like, there's one, done, squashed.

01:42And as the chunks are flattened,

01:44you can start more like rubbing,

01:47which is the step toward getting them

01:49just into those finer, finer, finer pieces that you want.

01:52If at any point you start to feel the butter getting greasy,

01:55stop.

01:56Throw the bowl in the fridge or the freezer

01:59for like five minutes, okay?

02:00You want it to stay cold.

02:02If it gets warm, it's not gonna work well.

02:04Now it's time for the wet ingredients.

02:06So here we have an egg.

02:08I'm just gonna crack this into the bowl,

02:10give it a whisk, and then I'm gonna add it to our milk.

02:13Into the milk, and just give that a nice little whisk.

02:21We're gonna make a well in the center of our dry,

02:26just like that.

02:27And then we are going to pour this wet right in

02:33to the middle, just like that.

02:34The well is the best way to initiate even incorporation,

02:38if that makes sense, because now we're gonna take the fork

02:41and we're gonna just go whoop, whoop,

02:43and just start filling in the pool in the middle.

02:46And it's gonna come to the outside

02:49and it's just gonna mix and incorporate better.

02:53You'll see a lot of old recipes that say to make a well.

02:56If you ever wondered why, that's it.

02:58Use the fork and almost fluff it if you can.

03:01The secret to the best scones is not overworking the dough.

03:08And that's why we're using a fork,

03:10because the fork will help to prevent that.

03:12Another trick to not overworking the dough

03:13is knowing when to stop.

03:15So at this point, there's still some flour flying around,

03:20but we've got a shaggy dough.

03:22And at this point, I would say stop.

03:24This is the time to pour it out onto the work surface

03:27and start to fold.

03:28♪♪

03:33Gonna just lay down a little bit of flour

03:35to keep it from sticking to the board, nice and even.

03:38Very gently.

03:40And yes, it looks a little bit all over the place.

03:43It's fine.

03:44It's going to incorporate, I promise.

03:47Form it with your hands very carefully

03:49into a rough rectangle and pat it.

03:51Pretend like it's a homogenous dough.

03:54Humor it, okay?

03:55And then you're gonna take the top

03:58and fold it in half like a letter.

04:00It's gonna crumble apart.

04:01Again, humor it.

04:03Pretend.

04:04Form it back.

04:06And then give it a turn 90 degrees like that.

04:10Starting with high scone dough

04:12is the secret to high scones.

04:14If you find that it's sticking for some reason,

04:17you can use a bench scraper.

04:19If you have one, it's a great tool to help you with this.

04:23So you're just gonna keep folding it and turning it.

04:30Just like this.

04:31What you're looking for is this, essentially.

04:36Where you still see some breakages,

04:39but it is looking like a cohesive thing

04:42that is holding together.

04:49Another key to the rise.

04:50This is crucial.

04:52You want a metal biscuit cutter, okay?

04:56This one's two and a half inches.

04:58That is traditional size for a British scone.

05:01So that's what I do.

05:02We're gonna take our scone cutter.

05:03We are going to dip it in that flour.

05:07And then we are going to press evenly

05:10and cleanly and neatly into the dough.

05:16We are not, repeat, say it with me, everybody.

05:20We are not going to twist as we go down, okay?

05:24If you twist, you will actually lock the dough

05:27and then it won't rise.

05:29And you'll end up with scones that are like,

05:31or just don't rise at all.

05:33So not good.

05:35After you've cut,

05:37the key is to mess with the sides as little as possible.

05:42I like to lift it like this,

05:44take it directly to the baking sheet

05:46and release it on the baking sheet.

05:48Touch as little as possible.

05:50Now, as you cut, you wanna get them close,

05:53but you don't wanna be cutting off edges.

05:55Again, if you cut off edges,

05:58like if you overlap a already cut edge,

06:01again, you ruin your beautiful rise.

06:03So just be aware.

06:07Am I making this sound super hard?

06:08I hope not.

06:09It's not hard.

06:10It's just, there are tricks to get the perfect result

06:13that looks like it came out of a great tea room in London.

06:16And I want you to know them

06:18so you can make them just like that too.

06:20These four that are on the baking sheet

06:22are the best of the batch.

06:23They are the pick of the litter, so to speak.

06:25We're not gonna get such gorgeous perfection

06:28from what's here,

06:29but the way that we work with what's here

06:32can help us get pretty darn close.

06:34So just push the dough bits together.

06:38And then we're gonna go ahead and roll it out.

06:40And I'm gonna show you how to roll it out.

06:42I'm gonna show you how to roll it out.

06:44I'm gonna show you how to roll it out.

06:46I'm gonna show you how to roll it out.

06:47I'm gonna show you how to roll it out.

06:49Together, just like this.

06:52Again, we are not disturbing the layers

06:55that we have built up.

06:56We're just shoving them together to create a new mass.

07:00Looks a little bit like, I don't know,

07:03some natural crater disaster or something,

07:05but you are going to pinch the top together

07:09to help it come together into homogenous.

07:13And don't be afraid to just kind of like push it together.

07:17And if it's taller than an inch, that's fine.

07:20You can pat it out again.

07:20We are trying to preserve all of the layers

07:22that we've already built up.

07:24And here's a trick.

07:26If the top doesn't look amazing,

07:30and you're like, I bet the bottom is smoother,

07:31you can also flip this thing over.

07:34Yeah, like that.

07:35That's probably smoother.

07:37Little bit floury, but smoother.

07:39So at this point, pat out to an inch again.

07:44And repeat.

07:50One more nicely cut out one.

07:53And then, if you still have dough

07:57that you can't get to like a cuttable form,

08:00I will like sometimes just like roll it.

08:02I call it the snake one.

08:04Just kind of roll it.

08:05Or you could call it rosettes, that sounds nicer.

08:08And ta-da, you bake that one too.

08:11And it's delicious.

08:13We are gonna throw these babies in the oven

08:15right off the bat.

08:16But before we do that, we are going to egg wash them.

08:19So here I have the egg wash.

08:22It's just one whole egg whisked up

08:24with just a little pinch of salt.

08:26The salt's key because it actually helps

08:29to release those proteins in the egg and loosen them up,

08:32which gives you a more even egg wash.

08:35A gentle touch, and you're good to go.

08:38And then, we're gonna do the egg wash.

08:40So we're gonna do an even egg wash.

08:41A gentle touch, a light hand.

08:45We want even coverage.

08:47We do not want dripping.

08:50We are gonna bake these babies

08:51at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

09:04These look so good.

09:06Now, you wanna, when you break a scone,

09:08there will be a natural break,

09:09and that's what you wanna get.

09:11Like that.

09:12Oh, so delicious.

09:14You can top your scones with anything that you like.

09:17I like clotted cream and raspberry jam.

09:19So we're gonna do that today.

09:22Also, point of contention, I like my jam seeded.

09:26Other people might disagree.

09:33Oh, isn't she beautiful?

09:35Oh, isn't she beautiful?

09:40Mm-mm.

09:41It's buttery, and it's light, and it's fluffy.

09:45You get that tang of the clotted cream,

09:47the sweetness of the jam.

09:49So good.

09:51If I was alone right now,

09:53I would be housing this whole thing.

09:54I hope you give these scones a try.

09:56They make my day every time I make them,

09:58and I know they're gonna make yours too.

10:00For this and other technique-forward recipes,

10:02stick around on delish.com.

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