Day 13: Ginger Scones

I turned back to the dessert chapter tonight. Not because I have a sweet tooth, but because I don't have the muffin tin Patrick wanted me to have to make the Carmelized Onion Tartlets. Instead, I had a try at Ginger Scones. Now, you might be saying to yourself, 'I've seen a scone before, how hard can they be?' Well, that's a perfectly fair observation. In fact, that's exactly what I thought. Fortunately, Patrick gave some good directions that made them easy...AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE THE RECIPE!

I quote: "continue mixing just until the ingredients are incorporated. (Overmixing will cause the scones to be tough.)". I don't know that this is true for all scone recipes--I think I only ever had scones when Emily Jenkins brought them to GT class in the seventh grade--but when one mixes "just until the ingredients are incorporated," the dough looks dry and crumbly and like it can't possibly be molded into a little mound of deliciousness. This, it turns out, is not true. Roll the dough together into one mass, have some faith, carefully place the molds on the baking sheet, and believe.

Also, brush with the cream! If the scones are as dry as mine were going into the oven, and if your oven is as hot as mine seems to sometimes (only sometimes) be, and if you FORGET TO PUT THE CREAM ON FOR FOUR MINUTES, your apartment will shortly fill with smoke as mine sometimes seems to be. This can be remedied by simply brushing with cream.

The scones, after my doubting, turned out pretty good. I like this recipe because I think I can replace the candied ginger (which is expensive for the amount in the recipe) with whatever else I want. That's a good feeling because this is a big point of the project. I started just wanting to learn some more about cooking and get some ideas about what to do in the future. I've learned a ton so far, and I'm looking forward to more.

Now to go see if my smoke detector actually works. I have my doubts.