McGough Scones

I am sure you have seen them in coffee shops and chain bakeries. Large lumpy triangle things. I will every once and a while buy one to go with my tea and then am disappointed. They are dry and crumbly with hardly any flavor really just not all that pleasant to eat. So I thought maybe if I made them I could eat them at home with butter and jam and that would be better and so I set out to find a good scone recipe and found that in fact eating them fresh from the oven with jam and tea was much more pleasant. 

But then I had some at a tea house, they were not fresh from the oven hot but still soft and buttery and wonderful with the jam and clotted cream. So I determined to make my own recipe for scones that held up to cooling and still were wonderful. I think I have found success. You see how fluffy and delightfully light they are inside? So wonderful! And they are pretty easy and quick to make. The sort of thing that you can throw together just as guests arrive, then put the kettle on as soon as the scones are in the oven and have the tea and scones ready about the same time. The only thing I need to do now is learn how to make clotted cream as I have not seen any in our local grocery store. You can substituted whipped cream but its just not quite the same.

This is one of the few recipes I can call really my own, one where I have played with the ingredients, done a lot of research in to others recipes and what effects the ingredient have on the end product so I could get the result I wanted. When making them today with The Girl she asked what they were called and I told her I did not know. The first scone recipe I ever made were called "Lily's scones" so maybe as I was creating this recipe we should call them "Mommy's Scones" She was not a fan of the idea as that implies that only I got to eat them so she named them for me, these are officially "McGough Scones"




3 and 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking soda
4 and 1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, in teaspoon sized proportions
 1 cup whole milk
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon sugar

Sift or whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tarter in a bowl. Work in the butter and shortening with your hands until well combined. the mixture should be slightly grainy and stick together when compressed. In a large bowl mix milk, yogurt, vanilla, and sugar until totally smooth. To this add the flour mixture.

You can, at this point, roll the dough out to about an inch think and cut with a biscuit cutter if you want the neat uniformity and attention to detail associated with English Tea. Or you can turn it out on some flour and work it a little, not really kneading the dough just improving its elasticity then roll and cut into squares, dividing those squared diagonally into triangles for baking. But I generally prefer to just plop a bit of dough on a greased cookie sheet and let them keep there lumpy shape.

You can add an egg wash if you would like them to have a nice golden color after baking, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I didn't this time. You can also add dried fruit. I love them with 1/2 cup dried cranberries and the zest of about half an orange. That is what is in the ones pictured. The zest is added to the milk and yogurt mixture and the cranberries are added after both the wet and dry have been combined before you turn it out if you are doing so.

Bake them on a greased cookie sheet for about 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 425 degrees. It should make about a dozen biscuit sized scones. You can leave them well spaced to get the look I did when I plopped them on there but squishing them together and letting them cuddle up while baking is quite alright as well and results in fewer dirty pans for me at least as I could not fit all twelve on one sheet and still give them room.

When fresh from the oven cover with jam or butter or cream and enjoy! But delightfully these keep there wonderful texture when cool so I suggest you make a batch for tea and enjoy whats left with breakfast the next day.