The Great Scone Road Test.

There are so many different ways to make scones, so many variations on recipes that I just couldn't resist trying out a few different ones to see how different there really are in the end. Then I had the idea to turn it into a road test challenge, so I chose 3 different recipes and followed  them as close as I could (baking time was the only thing that needed tweaking) and invited 3 scone loving friends over and set up a blind testing.

The three scone recipes I picked out were, Mrs Potts cream-tea scones from the Disney baking magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly 'basic scones' and a lemonade scone recipe from the Taste.com.au website.  All with different ingredients, two with similar methods, and one that was completely different.

Scone number one, Mrs Potts cream-tea Scones

What you need…

• 50 grams butter
• 450 grams plain flour
• 50 grams caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons bi-carb soda 
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (1 1/2 cups milk 3 teaspoons lemon juice if you don't ready made buttermilk)
• milk for glazing

How you do it…

• Sift the flour, caster sugar, bi-carb soda, cream of tartar and salt into a large bowl, cut the butter into cubes and add to the bowl. Use your finger tips rub the butter into the dry ingredients to make a breadcrumb looking mixture.
• Make a well and pour in the egg and buttermilk, mix well with a wooden spoon.
• Turn out onto a floured bench and kneed into a ball, this dough was very very sticky so you will need quite a bit of extra flour for this part and rolling out.
• With a rolling pin roll the dough out to 1cm thickness, and cut into rounds using a small glass or cookie cutter
• Lightly brush with milk.
• Bake on 180 degrees for 8 mins (the recipe called for the oven to be 220 degree and to bake for 20 mins.  WhenI first baked these scones I had the oven this hot and they were cooked within 5 mins, I would have had black rocks if I left them in for 20 minutes!)

These scones where light inside and had a nice crunchy crust on the outside, they were more a yellow colour than a tradition white you get with a scone, which is most likely due to the egg, they also had a tangy bite to them thanks to the butter milk. Being quite a large amount of dough I made 26 scones out of this recipe.

Scone number two, Lemonade Scones

What you need…

• 2 cups of self raising flour
• 1/4 a cup of caster sugar
• 1/2 a cup of cream
• 1/2 a cup of lemonade
• milk for glazing

How you do it…

• Sift the flour and caster sugar together into a large bowl 
• Pour the cream and lemonade into the bowl and mix well forming the dough 
• Turn out onto a floured bench and kneed to bring it all together
• Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1cm thickness, and cut into rounds using a small glass or cookie cutter.
• Lightly brush with milk
• Bake on 180 degree for 10 mins.

These scone where a nice white colour and very light.  The dough was firm to work with so I was very surprised with how light their were after being baked. I made 12 scones out of this recipe.

Scone number three, Australian Women's Weekly Basic Scones

What you need…

• 2 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 30 grams butter
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1/2 a cup water
• milk for glazing

How you do it…

• Sift flour, caster sugar and salt together.
• Cut the butter into cubes and add to the flour mix, rub the butter into the flour using your fingers to create a bread crumb looking mixture.
• Make a well and pour in the milk and water, mix well with a wooden spoon
• Turn out onto a floured bench and kneed to form the dough, this dough ws quite sticky so you need a bit of extra flour.
• Using a rolling pin roll out to a 2 cm thickness, and cut into rounds using a small glass or cookie cutter
• Lightly brush with milk
• Bake on 180 degrees for 12 mins.

These scones were nice and light, but like the name where quite basic, not too sweet so would be great to turn into a savoury scone too.  They took slightly longer to bake than the other recipes, so make sure you give them the extra couple of minutes so the are nicely done on the inside. The recipe made 12 scones.

The road test!

I didn't have to spend too much time preparing this road test, scones are so quick and easy to whip up and within the hour I had three batches of scones baked and cream and jam prepared.  My three blind taste testers arrived to the different scones on three platers with just number identification. I told them in no particular order what type I had baked and told them that they just needed to tell me which scone they favoured and they could have a go at guessing which was which.

My testers were fantastic, one actually correctly guessed all three scones, but they all made comments that I found matched the type of scone they were critiquing perfectly.  All three knew that scone one (the Mrs Potts scones) had a tang to them which I knew was from the buttermilk, but two of the testers thought that this may be from lemonade.  All three guessed that scone three was the Australian Women's Weekly basic scone, because it tasted like a good basic scone that would work with both savoury and sweet conserves.

So what scone won??? Mrs Pott's cream-tea scones got one vote to win, but the Lemonade scones got two winning votes crowning them the scone champion.  These happened to be my favourites too and the easiest to make which is a huge plus.  But in the end we have ended up with three great recipes, all that will have a place in my scone repertoire.

Happy Baking