It takes a lot for me, a person who spent most of her life in Ireland, to admit that my favourite recipe is by Nigella Lawson; but here we are.
When it comes to scones, the celeb chef gets everything – from mixing butter with solid-at-room-temperature shortening for a flakier dough, to the crucial addition of buttermilk – right.
But I learned the secret that makes every scone recipe, including Nigella’s, rise to great heights from another telly legend: Mary Berry.
Her secret transformed my attempts from the sad, hockey-puck-like messes you see above to the towering triumphs you see next to them.
The secret’s in the hydration
Anyone who makes bread will know how important the hydration of your dough is to the eventual rise of your loaf (it was a big part of how I turned my focaccia from a limp and slightly anaemic creation to springy, golden perfection).
I didn’t realise how important the baking basic was for the treats until I read the former Great British Bake-Off judge’s advice in her cookbook Foolproof Cooking.
She advises: “A scone dough should be [on the] fairly sticky side rather than dry. If it is on the wet side, it gives a better rise and the resulting scones are very moist.”
I used to be worried that, like with shortcrust pastry, adding too much liquid to the dough would result in a tough, rubbery texture.
Since reading Mary’s wisdom, however, I’ve tried to make sure every scone dough I mix together is looser and kneaded-bread-dough-level tacky.
I haven’t had a flat scone since.
Does Mary have any other advice for making scones moist?
Yes! Her Foolproof Cooking recipe is actually a tear-and-share loaf rather than a series of single hard-sided scones.
Rather than meticulously carving or cutting scones one by one, the Cordon Bleu-trained chef simply rolls her dough into balls and places them close to one another to fuse in the oven.
It’s similar to the advice she offers to those cooking notoriously dry salmon fillets in the oven – crowding them close to each other keeps the moisture where it should be, in the food, rather than escaping into the appliance.