Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Scones. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Scones. Sort by date Show all posts
I adore Biscuits, and by that I don't mean cookies, I mean North American style biscuits. Any soup or stew is immeasurably improved by the addition to the table of a nice basket of hot fresh biscuits.
I often have huge debates over the differences between Biscuits and Scones. Some people think that the two are the same thing and interchangeable, but in all honesty, they are two completely different things altogether!
There are some really significant differences between scones and biscuits. Scones typically have eggs in them and biscuits do not. Scones tend to be a little denser, drier, and not as flaky.
Just adding oats, fruit, herbs or anything else to a biscuit dough and cutting them in triangles does NOT make them a scone. Seriously. They may look identical in very many ways, but that is where any similarity stops!
The recipe I am sharing today for Yogurt Biscuits was adapted from the
Book, "Southern Biscuits," by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart.
I was intrigued by the notion that you could make delicious biscuits with only flour, salt and yogurt. I just had to try them for myself.
They were incredibly easy to put together. They are basically just salt, self rising flour and yogurt. Do use full fat yogurt. I have it on the authority of Natalie that low fat yogurt does not work well. I believe her.
I did not try them with low fat yogurt, but when a professional tells you not to use it. I listen. They usually know what they are talking about. Trust me on this.
If you don't have self
raising flour, you can make your own. (For every cup of flour, sift
together 1 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder.) It
works a charm.
If I am making my own self raising flour, I will usually make five or six cups of it at a time. You will always use it up. I promise you it won't be a waste of your time or money. I have plenty of recipes on here that use self-raising flour.
Soft butter goes very well with hot biscuits and if you are serving biscuits on their own, why not make it a flavoured butter. Today I made Honey Cardamom Butter. Honey and Cardamom have a natural affinity for each other.
Both have incredible warmth. Its difficult to put into words, but both feel like hugs and kisses and home sweet home to me.
This natural affinity between honey and cardamom is almost as strong as the one for biscuits and any butter! What is a biscuit without butter? No quite the same.
Look at the height of these biscuits. These rise really, really high. Quite surprisingly high when you consider that there is only a few basic ingredients in them.
That's what you get when you use a very light touch and you don't twist the cutter when you are cutting. So many people end up with lopsided biscuits.
That can be prevented by cutting them out by tapping straight up and down with a sharp edged cutter. Straight up. Straight down. No twisting at all.
I used a 3 inch cutter, patting my dough out to 1-inch thickness. I got 8 lovely big biscuits. Eight big, lovely, fluffy, beautifully textured biscuits.
These are as light as a cloud. They almost float off the plate. Like an angel's wings or an angel's kiss. They are amazing.
If you use a 2 inch cutter you will get more biscuits obviously. I like my biscuits to be a bit of a handful most of the time. They are perfect for filling with things.
Smaller ones also have their uses however. Smaller ones are perfect for grouping on a plate and can trick people into thinking they are not quite eating as much as they would be were the biscuits larger in size.
You can cut biscuits rally small, like one inch in diameter and that size is perfect to be used filled with ham or smoked salmon as appetizers or pre-meal nibbles, meant to be served with drinks
These, however, were perfect just as they are . . . tall and light textured . . . with a beautifully flaky crumb. Mean to be enjoyed.
In short . . . biscuit perfection. Whether you are enjoying them with butter and something sweet, or sitting next to a hot bowl of soup or stew.
Obviously with a soup or stew you may want to leave off the Cardamom Butter, unless it is a creamy soup such as a roasted butternut squash or pumpkin. It might go rather well with those.
In any case, I really hope you will want to bake these. I am absolutely positive that you will enjoy them as much as we did.
Yogurt Biscuits & Honey Cardamom Butter
Yield: 6 - 8 (3-inch) biscuits)
prep time: 15 Mcook time: 15 Mtotal time: 30 M
Make sure you use full fat yogurt for these deliciously light and fluffy biscuits. If your yogurt is especially thick you can thin it with a bit of milk. These are fabulously tall, crisp on the outsides, tender inside, and go perfectly with the honey butter!
Ingredients:
For the Honey Cardamom Butter:
- 1/2 cup butter at room temperature (120g)
- 2 TBS honey
- 1 1/2 TBS icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
For the Biscuits:
- 2 1/4 cups of self raising flour (315g)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup full fat yogurt (245g)
- softened butter for brushing (optional)
Instructions:
- To make the honey cardamom butter, beat all of the ingredients together in a bowl until evenly mixed. Scrape into a serving bowl. Cover and chill until needed.
- Preheat the oven to 225*C/450*F/ gas mark 7. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Measure (280g) 2 cups of the the flour into a bowl along with the salt and make a well in the centre. Add two thirds of the yogurt into the well, reserving the rest along with the remaining (35g)1/4 cup of flour. Use a spatula to mix the flour and yogurt together just until he mixture comes together and the dry ingredients are moisened and a sticky dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. If you think the dough is too dry, add the remaining yogurt. If your dough is too wet, use more flour when shaping.
- Lightly sprinkle a board with some of the reserved flour. Turn the dough out and using floured hands, fold the dough in half and pat out to a 1/2-inch thick round using only as much flour as is needed. Flour again and repeat, patting the dough out to 1/2 inch thick for a normal biscuit, and 1 inch thick for a tall biscuit. (I like them tall.)
- Using a floured 3-inch cutter stamp out 8 biscuits. Take care not to twist the cutter or your biscuits will be lopsided. Try to get as many cuts as you can from the first cutting. Gather, pat out and recut the scraps. (These will be tougher which is why you want to get as many as you can from the first patting out.)
- Transfer all the biscuits to the lined baking tray.
- Bake the biscuits on the top rack of the oven for 6 minutes. Rotate the baking pan, back to front and then bake for a further 4 to 8 minutes until well risen and golden brown.
- Brush the tops with softened butter if desired. Serve warm with the Honey Cardamom Butter.
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English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are
reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you
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Its a lot colder today than it was yesterday. Talk about feast or famine! Yesterday I didn't have to keep the heat on all day. Today I have.
My next door neighbor brought me a dandelion in bloom yesterday to show me. I dare say that dandelion has lost its bloom today!
I decided to heat myself up a bowl of soup for my dinner today. Usually I like to have crackers with my soup, but I didn't have any in the cupboard.
I wasn't wanting to go out into the cold to the shops to get any either and so I did the next best thing. I decided to bake myself some biscuits to go along with the soup.
I wasn't, however, willing to bake a whole batch of biscuits because, well, there is really only me to eat them.
I decided to see if I couldn't make a much smaller batch of biscuits. I came across this recipe for Simple Drop Biscuits in a cookbook I have entitled, The Complete Cooking For Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen.
You cannot go wrong with an ATK cookbook. Those recipes have been worked and hashed out to perfection. I trust them implicitly!
I wish to put to rest the differences between Scones and Biscuits once and for all. I have the same comments made each and every time. Most people think that they are the same thing, but they truly are not. I promise you.
In the UK, they call cookies biscuits. These are not them. These are not cookies. Nor are they scones.
They are North American Biscuits. Biscuits have more butter and acidity (often from the use of buttermilk), making them extra fluffy and flaky. Scones rely on richer, denser, ingredients like heavy cream and eggs to get a sturdy, yet crumbly, pastry.
They are two completely different things. People thinking that there is no difference between the two things is a Pet Peeve of mine. It really is.
They also differ a great deal in how they are put together. With biscuits, the fat most usually is cut in using either a pastry blender or two round bladed knives.
With scones the fat is rubbed into the flour using your finger tips. This method along with the use of eggs and or cream form the major difference in texture.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE DROP BISCUITS FOR TWO
Nothing too out of the ordinary here.
- 1 cup (140g) plain all purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
- 1/8 tsp sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup (80ml) cold buttermilk
- 2 TBS butter, melted and hot
- Additional melted butter to brush on top of the finished biscuits
Don't worry if you do not have any buttermilk. I know sometimes, especially in the UK, it can be hard to find. You can very easily make your own.
Here is what always works for me. You can whisk together equal parts of full fat plain yogurt and whole milk, or even sour cream and milk.
You can also put 1 TBS of lemon juice or white vinegar into a measuring cup and add whole milk to the measure you need. Leave it to sit for five minutes to clabber.
This works perfectly as a replacement.
HOW TO MAKE SIMPLE DROP BISCUITS
Nothing could be easier to make. There is no faffing about with having to pat them out or cut them into rounds or squares. You just mix together, drop and bake. Easy peazy.
You will want to bake these in a hot oven, so preheat your oven to 450*F/ 230*C. I use a very small baking sheet. It is only about 5 by 8 inches in size. You could use a pie dish, or any size baking dish. All you need is a dish large enough to hold them with space around for spreading/rising.
Sift your flour, soda and baking powder into a bowl. The reason I sift them is so that the leavening is mixed equally into the flour. Nobody wants a mouthful of baking powder when they bite into something.
It also helps to aerate the flour giving your baked result a bit more lift. Stir in the sugar and salt.
As with most quick breads, the wet ingredients are stirred together and then added to the dry. In this case you want cold buttermilk and hot melted butter.
When the butter hits the cold buttermilk, it clumps. This is exactly what you want. Little beads or clumps of butter. The clumps of butter melt and turn to steam when the biscuits are baking making for a lovely light and fluffy interior.
Stir the wet and dry ingredients together with a round bladed knife or a rubber spatula, taking care not to over mix. (Overmixing will give you a tougher biscuit.) You want a soft claggy dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Drop by heaped spoonsful onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving plenty of space in between for spreading, about 1 1/2 inches.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through the bake time. When they are done they will be nicely puffed, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. Brush the tops of the hot biscuits with additional melted butter and serve immediately.
There is no shortage of biscuit recipes on here (as they are one of my favorite things.) Some of my absolute favorite biscuit recipes are:
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. You can find an extensive list here.
Their surface is covered with nice crisp craggy buttery bits. Light, fluffy and incredibly delicious. Its probably a good thing there is only four or I might be tempted to overdo it!!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Hands up if up if you are not overly fond of January and already in need of a bit of a pick up! Me too! I've been dragging along with this rotten cold/sinus infection/chest infection . . . . and feeling blah since before Christmas. Christmas Dinner was a wash out . . . couldn't taste a thing. Likewise New Years . . . I am more than ready for a pick-me -up!
I saw an article in one of my latest month's food magazines, where they were talking about having a Duvet Day as a January Pick Me Up. I think by that they meant a day when you just laze around and eat nothing but junk and stuff, in your jim jams, watching cheesy films and stuff. I totaled up all the calories for what they were suggesting that a person imbibe for the day and it was outrageous!
Breakfast Sandwich 563 cals. Bloody Mary 128 cals. Teatime Treat Cake 352 cals, Creamy Hot Chocolate 293 cals. Movie Snack of Honeycomb, Pancetta and Maple Popcorn 431 cals. (All of this is per serving folks!) All topped off with a takeaway feast of homemade wings 450cals, Spiced Wedges 299 cals, Sticky Ribs 571 cals, and Red Cabbage Slaw at 248 cals . . . They can't be serious can they??? Or can they??? The mind boggles.
Kind of makes the calorie count of one of these tasty scones with some cream and jam seem rather healthy in comparison . . . duvet or no duvet . . .
In any case . . . these certainly were a pick-me-up. Is it feed a fever starve a cold? Or is it starve a fever, feed a cold. I don't know. I only know for sure that I am about fed up to the eyeballs with coughing my guts out . . .
These made a nice change . . . a small indulgence without going over the top.
*Cherry Almond Scones*
Makes 8
Printable Recipe
Beautifully rich and flaky scones, stogged full of candied cherries and lovely flavours of vanilla and almond. The flaked almonds which are baked on top give them a lovely crunch.
2 cups plain flour (200g)
1/3 cup caster sugar (65g)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup chilled butter (75g)
2/3 cup whipping cream (156ml)
1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp pure almond extract
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup candied cherries, washed, dried and cut into quarters (200g tub)
flaked almonds and cream to finish
Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
Sift the flour into a bowl along with the sugar, baking powder and salt. Drop in the butter, cut into bits. Rub the butter in with your finger tips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the cherries. Whisk together the cream, egg and extracts. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a fork. The mixture will be very sticky. Tip out onto a floured board. Knead several times with floured hands to bring together. Pat out to 1 inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a sharp round cutter, 3 inches in diameter., using a sharp up and down tap. Do not twist.
Place rounds onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with more cream and sprinkle with flaked almonds. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Scoop off onto a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar to serve if desired. Delicious split and served with clotted cream and preserves.
I've been trying to run down the fresh goodies in my fridge and larder this week in preparation for us going on holidays soon. I never like to go away leaving much in the fridge to go off. We will only be gone for about a week, but still . . .
It's been rainy and nasty as well . . . soup weather. I sure hope that this rain doesn't go on for long! I hate to think of us spending a week up in Cumbria being totally rained in, but nevertheless . . . as Todd says, nobody comes to England for the weather!
I made us this tasty soup today for our lunch. It's adapted from a recipe I found in the October issue of Good Food Magazine. Theirs was accompanied by curried pinwheel breadrolls, but I thought that I would make curried pinwheel scones instead, coz . . . we like scones, and I didn't have any bread mix that their recipe called for in the house.
It also gave me a chance to use this handy new tool I picked up the other day when I was out. The Tala Cook's measure. I found it in Hobby Craft strangely enough! I just love it!! Internally graduated, for precise weighing of dry ingredients such as sugar, rice & flour, it makes a great alternative to a set of scales. It worked like a charm. In fact I liked it so much that I have decided to give one of you, my readers, one as a gift! It doesn't matter where you live. I'll send it anywhere. To be in on the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and sign up as a follower. If you are already a follower, just let me know in your comment. I'll draw one of your names when I get back from my holiday and I may even throw in a special little surprise extra! Good luck everyone!
In the meantime, have some soup!
*Curried Lentil Soup*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe
Quick, easy, filling and delicious!
2 TBS curry paste (Choose your own poison according
to how strong you want it. I chose a milder one)
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
5 ounces red lentils (about 3/4 cup)
1 litre of hot vegetable stock (about 4 1/2 cups)
salt and white pepper to taste
Heat the curry paste in a saucepan for about a minute over medium heat. Add the onion. Cook and stir for a further 2 minutes until fragrant. Stir in the carrots and lentils to coat with the onions and curry paste. Pour in the hot stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 25 to 30 minutes until the lentils are tender. Blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Alternately blitz carefully in a stand blender or a food processor until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper and then serve, ladled out into heated bowls.
*Curried Pinwheel Scones*
Makes 12
Printable Recipe
Golden brown and crusty outside, meltingly tender inside, and swirled with delicious curry spice.
8 ounces flour (2 cups)
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1 TBS sugar
4 ounces cold butter, cut into bits (1/2 cup)
150ml of cold milk (2/3 cup)
1 TBS Curry Paste
Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Butter a large baking sheet. Set aside.
Sift the flour into a bowl along with the salt and baking powder. Drop in the butter and rub it into the flour mixture until it resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the sugar. Stir in the milk until you have a soft dough. Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead several times. Pat out into an 8 by 12 inch rectangle. Spread the curry paste all over the top. Roll up from the long side tightly, like a jelly roll. Pinch the seam closed. Using a sharp knife cut into 12 1-inch slices. Place onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving some space in between each for spreading.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned. Serve hot with soup.
There are some delicious Leek, Mustard and Parsley Stuffed Jacket Potatoes over in the Cottage today.
I don't think I have ever met a scone that I did not fall in love with. Sweet or savoury, they all hit the spot with me. People tend to think that scones and biscuits are the same thing, which is not exactly true, although they may seem very similar in texture and taste. And that is not to confuse British biscuits (which are cookies) with North American Biscuits (which are a type of quick bread similar to a scone!) Are you confused yet?
A biscuit is not a scone people and a scone is not a biscuit. The two are definitely not interchangeable! To be sure, they are composed of basically the same things . . . fat, leavener, dairy and flour . . . but the very way that they are put together generally results in a somewhat different animal altogether. Biscuits tend to be light and airy, with almost visibly defined, flaky layers. A scone, on the other hand, whilst also light and somewhat airy, has an almost crumbly texture. When you are making a good biscuit, the fat is "Cut" into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until the mixture has lumps of fat in it the size of small peas. Fat in a scone is "Rubbed" in with your fingertips, in an almost snapping motion, until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
See, two different creations entirely . . . and both can have various amounts of sugar in them, or no sugar in them, and can come in sweet and savoury versions.
Now lets talk about Bacon. Who doesn't love Bacon (barring all vegetarians.) I don't know any meat lover that doesn't wax poetic about a lovely piece of bacon. Before I moved here to the UK, I only knew one kind of bacon, and that was . . . well . . . bacon. Oh, and Canadian bacon, which was quite nice and meaty. Since moving over here I discovered that there are all kinds of bacon. First there is smoked and non-smoked. Then there is dry cured and wet cured. Bacon over here mostly looked like the kind you see in the bottom of the above photo, which is kind of like Canadian bacon with a leg of streaky bacon attached. Streaky bacon is the type that I had grown up with for the most part, like you see in the upper right hand photo. Fattier. And then there was rind on and rind off. I have never come to enjoy it with the rind on. I don't like bacon rinds. So I always buy it rind removed, dry cured and depending on what I am using it for either smoked or non-smoked, and they are now bringing in nitrate free cured bacon, which is good news for us who want to avoid nitrates.
Cheese. Before moving to the UK, the most adventurous I got with cheese was having sliced Havarti on a sandwich, or treating us to a small block of marble cheese if we were having company, or, yes . . . a piece of Kraft Cracker Barrel Cheese at Christmas. We did use smelly-sock (Parmesan) from the green can (I put my hand up) on our spaghetti, but that was the whole extent of my cheese usage. I was a cheese virgin so to speak. Living in the UK has been a wonderful education to me of all the wonderful cheeses that are available here in the UK, and indeed Europe altogether. It has been an education and a journey I have greatly enjoyed. My husband will tell you (and he is a Brit through and through) that there is no cheese worth eating except for Cheddar. He is a huge fan and was very disappointed when we were on the continent and couldn't find good old cheddar cheese in the shops there. Never mind, when I do a cheese tray, he happily helps himself to all the cheeses, but lets just say that a good strong cheddar is his favourite. And I have to agree that a good strong cheddar, slightly crumbly and sharp flavoured, is a thing of beautiful taste to be sure.
So what do you get when you combine the three of those things? A good strong cheddar. Some crisp streaky dry cured smoked bacon. And a good scone?
Well, you get another thing of beauty . . . Cheese and Bacon Scones. Crunchy on the outside and so soft and flaky on the insides . . . all
buttery and stogged full of strong cheddar cheese and . . . lovely
salty, smoky bacon. Perfect for serving with soups, salads, or even just hot and buttered with a nice hot cuppa on a leisurely afternoon.
*Cheese and Bacon Scones*
Makes 15 to 20, depending on how big you cut them
Makes 15 to 20, depending on how big you cut them
Scrumdiddlyumpitiously savoury. Perfect with some sliced ham or cheese, or both. You can vary the spiciness of them by adjusting the amount of cayenne used.
490g plain flour (about 3 1/2 cups)
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 level tsp of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp salt
2 TBS cold butter, cubed
4 ounces bacon, grilled and finely chopped with a sharp knife, or
in the food processor
115g strong cheddar cheese, grated (1 cup)
1 medium free range egg
375ml of sour milk or buttermilk (1 2/3 cup)
Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Dust a large baking sheet lightly with flour. Set aside.
Sift the flour, soda, cayenne pepper and salt into a large bowl. Drop in the butter and then rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine dry bread crumbs. Stir in the bacon and cheese.
Whisk together the egg and milk.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Mix to a soft dough with your hand by running it around the bowl. Try not to knead it as this will develop the gluten which will toughen the scones. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. (The dough will be quite sticky) Pat out with floured hands until you get a square 3/4 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut it into 15 to 20 squares. (Alternately you can cut them out with a sharp knife or a 2 inch round cutter) Place onto the floured baking sheet leaving about 2 inches between each.
Bake for 10 to 14 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
Sift the flour, soda, cayenne pepper and salt into a large bowl. Drop in the butter and then rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine dry bread crumbs. Stir in the bacon and cheese.
Whisk together the egg and milk.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Mix to a soft dough with your hand by running it around the bowl. Try not to knead it as this will develop the gluten which will toughen the scones. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. (The dough will be quite sticky) Pat out with floured hands until you get a square 3/4 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut it into 15 to 20 squares. (Alternately you can cut them out with a sharp knife or a 2 inch round cutter) Place onto the floured baking sheet leaving about 2 inches between each.
Bake for 10 to 14 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
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