Lemon Blueberry Scones Recipe - (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good scones? ›

Baking tips for making the perfect scones

The colder the better when it comes to scones, we recommend a chilled bowl and pastry cutter too. Use pastry flour: This will create a noticeably lighter scone. However, self-raising flour works just as well and creates a higher rising scone that holds its shape nicely.

Placing a dough in a cool oven that then slowly heats up actually affects the rising agent. Make sure your oven is at the right temperature you will be baking the scones at before you put them in. Also having an oven that is too hot or too cold will affect the baking of your scones immensely.

Baking soda reacts with acidic ingredients, creating lift when the acid is introduced.

For best browning, brush rounds (or drop scones) with milk or cream before baking. For added crunch and flavor, top with sugar (granulated, turbinado, or sparkling) or cinnamon-sugar.

The secret is using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. It's lower in protein and makes for ultra-tender scones. If you don't have any on hand, you can easily make your own using all-purpose flour and cornstarch (see the FAQs below). For a kid-friendly twist, don't miss my chocolate chip scones.

For example, if you substitute oil for butter or margarine, you can significantly reduce the amount of saturated fat in your baked goods. This streamlined recipe for Light Scones uses just 3 tablespoons of canola oil, which contains a fraction of the saturated fat found in butter or margarine.

Much like cinnamon rolls, arranging your scones side by side, just touching one another, helps in making the scones rise evenly, and higher. Since the heat causes the scones to rise, if they are placed side by side, the scones will be forced to rise upwards, not outwards.

Not chilling the dough before baking: to really ace your scones, it helps to chill your dough again before it's baked. Using cold ingredients does help, but your hands will warm up the dough when you're working with it and the extra step of chilling will help you get the best result.

Recipes for scones sometimes provide a make-ahead option that involves refrigerating the dough overnight so it can simply be shaped and then popped into the oven the next day. But now we've found that resting the dough overnight has another benefit: It makes for more symmetrical and attractive pastries.

Large Egg - The egg helps bind the ingredients together and increases the richness and flavour. Unsalted butter - Has to be cold to create flaky layers within the scone.

What happens if you put too much baking powder in scones? ›

Too much baking powder can cause the batter to be bitter tasting. It can also cause the batter to rise rapidly and then collapse. (i.e. The air bubbles in the batter grow too large and break causing the batter to fall.) Cakes will have a coarse, fragile crumb with a fallen center.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift 3 cups self-raising flour into a large bowl. Using your fingertips, rub 80g butter, chilled and cubed into self-raising flour until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

The knife is a method to mix in a rough manner. If mixed thoroughly with a spoon or dough hook until smooth and well mixed, the dough will be worked too much, the components in the flour will combine too well etc and the result will be tough heavy scones, not lighter and a bit crumbly.

It is far better that the scone mixture is on the wet side, sticking to your fingers, as the scones will rise better. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it out with your hand, or use a rolling pin, to a thickness of 1-2 cm (1/2 – ¾ inch).

To check if they are ready, press down on the top to check if firm to touch, they are READY. If it indents down, bake for another 3-5 min. Be careful when touching scones!

Pack the scones closely on the baking tray so they will support each other as they rise rather than spreading. Make scones the day you need them – they taste far better warm.

Why? When cold butter is rubbed into the flour, it creates flaky pockets of flavour (which soft, room temperature butter can't do). Once the cold butter and liquid (e.g milk) hits the oven, the water in the butter and cold liquid begins evaporating.