I have loved scones for years, from the first “real” ones I tasted with clotted cream in England, to the pumpkin scones at Starbucks, to the power scones I sometimes buy when I’m in Milwaukee. I love them all, but each one is distinctly different from the other. Some are crumbly and dry, others are more like a triangular muffin or even have a sugar-cookie-like crust.
For the past few years I have made power scones for my family, trying to provide a healthful breakfast item and snack by loading it with whole wheat flour, flax seeds, and plenty of fruit. It’s my own recipe, one I created using a combination two sources: the list of ingredients from a favorite power scone we’ve had in the past (the bakery gave us the list of ingredients but not the recipe), and modeled after another recipe that had some similar ingredients. I went through numerous batches to tweak the recipe to incorporate fruit and lighten it from the hockey-puck texture of the original, and my family loves them.
Last week I had the luxury of attending Baking Boot Camp at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. One of our four days was focused on scones & muffins. I was excited to make more traditional scones and see how different it was from what I made. The CIA’s recipe incorporated eggs and cream, two ingredients completely missing from my recipe.
The CIA recipe and my power scone recipe are quite different from each other, and the contrast in ingredients is a wonderful illustration of the effects of gluten and fats on the texture and flavor of baked goods. Gluten is the substance in flour that reacts to moisture and activity to create strands like elastic bands that ultimately create the structure for your scone (or bread or cookie or cake). Different flours have different levels of gluten in them, ranging from cake flour at the low end, followed by pastry flour, all-purpose flour is somewhere in the middle of the range, and bread flour at the higher end of the range. In addition, the more the flour is “worked”—kneaded, stirred, etc.—the more gluten is activated, which will serve to tighten those elastic strands and provide more structure and, if overworked, stiffness. Whole wheat flour includes the bran from the wheat, which is sharp and actually cuts some of the gluten strands. This is one reason why items made with whole wheat flour are often more dense than their counterparts made with regular flour.
The traditional recipe from the CIA calls for pastry flour (less gluten in it than all-purpose flour), eggs and cream. Together they should provide a light, delicate texture to the final product. My power scones use whole wheat flour paired with bread flour, which has more gluten to help overcome the effects of the sharp bran and give the scones structure and lift. They also use yogurt instead of cream, and no eggs at all. I also add ground flax seed for additional nutrients. Both recipes use ample amounts of butter.
The results: The traditional recipe created a light, tender scone with a desirable amount of crumbling. The whole wheat flour and flax seeds in the power scones resulted in a darker-colored scone, but the bread flour did an effective job of lightening the end result and the berries added plenty of flavor.
As for my taste testers—three kids and four adults so far—they’ve had mixed opinions, but the power scone so far is in the lead five to one.
What’s your vote? Test the recipes yourself and let me know what you think!
Power Scones
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
½ cup oatmeal
6 tbsp sugar
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
10 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, shredded in a cold food processor
1 tsp lemon juice
1 to 1-1/2 cups berries or fruit (dried, fresh or frozen)
6 oz vanilla yogurt
1-2 tbsp skim milk
Turbinado sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Combine ingredients up to (but not including) butter and mix well. (These ingredients can be premixed and kept in the freezer.) Mix in shredded butter and fruit, integrating flour mixture into the butter with your hands. Do this quickly so that the butter does not melt. Gradually stir in the lemon juice.
Stir together the yogurt and milk and pour into the main mixture. Stir lightly until the dough comes together. Scoop dough onto lightly floured surface and knead twice. Divide the mixture into 2 balls, place onto parchment paper-lined sheet and press into a disk. Sprinkle tops with turbinado sugar. Slice into triangles using a pastry cutter or board scraper. Bake for 25-35 minutes until browned and set.
Recut along original lines. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, then cool on a rack.
Scones—CIA Recipe
17 oz pastry flour
2 oz sugar
.75 oz baking powder
.25 oz salt
7 oz butter, cold, cubed
12 oz diced apples
0.25 oz cinnamon
1.5 oz egg yolks
1.25 oz eggs
10.25 oz cream
Turbinado sugar (to taste)*
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the butter and apples and work the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands, piecing the butter out until you have chunks the size of large peas.
Combine the eggs, egg yolks and cream and add the mixture to the dry ingredients. Gently mix together (OK to use a standing mixer on low speed) until just combined into a dough.
Pat the dough into a square or rectangle approximately ¾” thick on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Cut the dough into triangles/wedges. Sprinkle sugar on top.
Bake at 375 degrees F until browned on the bottom and along the edges. Recut along original lines. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, then cool on a rack.
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