Tuesdays With Dorie, Number Two

Karina, over at The Floured Apron, chose this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe:  Apple Cheddar Scones  This was exciting, because I love scones, and have always wanted to make them.

The dough was assembled quite quickly.  The ingredients are pretty simple, and in fact the only things I had to go out and get were dried apples, buttermilk and apple juice.  Oh, and unsalted butter, since we tend not to use the unsalted variety for daily stuff, and I'd used up all of last week's making cookies.  Pay no attention to the snickerdoodles and sugar wafers on the left, they are entirely extraneous to the process.  I was making a double batch, because I intended to freeze half of them.  Somehow in the planning process, I neglected to factor in the 40 minute drive home in a car with no air conditioning.  So I ended up baking the entire mess of them, except for two that I left in the freezer for my mother to try baking from frozen.  Presumably, I will get the report on how that turned out later in the week.

I have no in process picture.  This is due to the fact that, while Dorie does note that the dough will be very sticky, this does not even begin to cover what the actual consistency of the dough was.  When I make these again, I am going to entirely forgo attempting to pat out the dough, because I think I added about half again the called for amount of flour by the second batch just to make it touchable.  Cutting was next to impossible.  The first batch I just made as drop biscuits, while the second I added enough flour to actually cut them, and make rectangles (the texture came out alright, if a tad rough.) They are definitely worth making the dough, but seriously?  Just make drop biscuits of them.  Much frustration and usage of bad words will be skipped, this way.

[Also, as a purely personal substitution, I will probably try to make these with cream, rather than buttermilk, because the smell of buttermilk makes me gag, something fierce.  I have distinct memories of my host-mother trying to get me to drink the stuff, saying that it was good for the complexion.  I distinguished myself by not throwing it right back up.  Barely.]

These were wonderful.  They taste divine, were tender and fluffy and the cheese tasted delightful with the tiny hint of flavor that the dried apple and apple juice provided.  They tasted wonderful right out of the oven, and to me, just as good the next day with butter.  I plan to have them for breakfast all week.  They're not terribly sweet, and as I mentioned, the apple flavor is not at all strong, and not something to be afraid of.  They would be equally good as breakfast food as they would along side a corn or potato chowder, warmed and topped with a slice of honey ham.

However.  These are not what I would call scones.  The scones from the Scottish Bakery in my mother's neighborhood are dense, creamy, and crumbly -- a distinctly different texture that simply wasn't present here.   These are biscuits.  There is a growing tendency to refer to sweet quick-bread variations as scones, and savory variations as biscuits, which I simply don't understand.  It may be that "scone" sounds fancier and more exotic, and more worth the $3.50 that Starbucks likes to charge, than does 'biscuit,' something that nobody would pay for because they come free with your KFC.  Which is all nonsense, because no self-respecting baker would call what KFC serves a biscuit, anyway.  But I seem to be ranting, now, and I should stop.

All this said, I definitely intend to make these biscuits again.  As drop biscuits*.

*Another reason that these are biscuits and not scones -- drop scones are pan fried, like pancakes.

Comments

[kim]

glad you liked them! interesting to hear that about pan-frying the scones... i had no idea :)

[Erin]

Your scones look beautiful, and you're right-I think they would be excellent with a slice of honey ham. Maybe as a scone sandwich?

[Susan]

Oh, I agree! These were biscuits. But who will pay $3.50 for a biscuit? Well put. Yours look great though...nice job.

[Lillian]

I love the in-process photos. And maybe it's just because I'm from the North, but to me, these were not biscuits. I think of biscuits as plain white fluffy things -- I've never heard of them being flavored at all.

They weren't nearly as dry and crumbly as other scones I've had, but I like that about them!

[Caitlin]

Pan frying? Huh, I wouldn't have thought of that. I'm glad you liked them, whatever you want to call them!

[Jules]

I did the drop version as well. Much easier and just as tasty.

[Felicia]

They look and sound delicious :)

[Dolores]

It's all relative... what they serve at KFC is closer to a biscuit than what they wrap around an egg and sausage for breakfast at McDonalds. Neither of which hold a candle to these. Great job with your biscuit-scones. :)

[Amy]

Your scones (I mean, biscuits) look delicious! I loved them, too.

[Barbara]

Glad you liked them! I'd love to taste an authentic Scottish-style scone -- by any chance do you have a recipe?

I've read that the original scones were patted out and cooked on a dry griddle, but I've never tried that.

I've always thought a scone was like a sweet biscuit with dried fruit added in, but I'd probably like them just about any old way!