A Tale of Two Scones

After a grueling morning practice, Kel and I decided to make the most delectable of second breakfasts: scones. To shake things up, we experimented with recipes. My recipe is from Baking Illustrated, and Kelley's is a secret specialty. The Baking Illustrated recipe, like all of Christopher Kimball's creations, boasts to be "the best". I made the Lemon-Blueberry variation of Cream Scones. The result? A fluffy buttery scone with just the slightest hint of sweetness. I would have liked there to be more of a lemon flavor to them, although the zest did give it a nice yellow compliment to the marbled blue color throughout.

The proportions of flour, sugar, "cream" substance (sour cream and milk instead of just heavy cream) in Kelley's old family recipe differ from the Baking Illustrated one. Her recipe required a little more baking powder, and a period of time to rise. Kelley's, which required a 1/4 cup of sugar, were much sweeter than Gillian's. The texture rivaled a muffin, which is not bad, but maybe not what a scone should be??



Overall, both these recipes were easy enough to follow and make in a little under an hour. We suggest that smaller scones would be preferable, and that one should cut them into the triangle shape, like Gillian did, rather than just molding them by hand. It might take us another try at this brunch treat to get it right. Cheers to second breakfast!

As an aside, I (Kelley) also whipped up one of my favorite cookies today: Chocolate Crinkles. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, can warm the chocolate lover's heart quite like these cookies. These delicacies are a bit more complex to make than your average cookie, but are worth every minute of waiting. I was given this recipe by a friend, Steph Duncan two years ago and I have worked for perfection. The key to achieving the perfect fluffy and yet melty consistency of the Crinkles is to use mini-semi sweet morsels and to let the dough chill overnight. In fact, I chill the dough in between rounds of baking. The temperamental nature of these cookies makes me love them even more - everything must be just right for them to be fantastic; but when it does they are unbeatable.