Quick and Easy Scone Recipe (Only 3 Ingredients!) (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good scones? ›

Baking tips for making the perfect scones

The colder the better when it comes to scones, we recommend a chilled bowl and pastry cutter too. Use pastry flour: This will create a noticeably lighter scone. However, self-raising flour works just as well and creates a higher rising scone that holds its shape nicely.

In theory, you could use water instead of milk in a scone recipe. However, milk adds a slightly better colour, flavour and texture.

Use all-purpose flour for a higher rising scone that holds its shape nicely, both in and out of the oven. To make more delicate, lower-rising, cake-like scones, substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour. Reduce the liquid in the recipe by 1 to 2 tablespoons, using just enough to bring the dough together.

Heavy Cream or Buttermilk: For the best tasting pastries, stick with a thick liquid such as heavy cream or buttermilk. I usually use heavy cream, but if you want a slightly tangy flavor, use buttermilk.

For example, if you substitute oil for butter or margarine, you can significantly reduce the amount of saturated fat in your baked goods. This streamlined recipe for Light Scones uses just 3 tablespoons of canola oil, which contains a fraction of the saturated fat found in butter or margarine.

That slightly bitter, kinda “tinny” flavor you often experience when biting into a muffin, biscuit or scone is the result of using a baking powder in high quantities — as is needed for these quick-rise treats — with aluminum in it.

Without this leavening agent, scones can become dense and heavy. However, you can opt for plain flour and add the appropriate amount of baking powder to your mix. This method allows you to control the amount of lift in your scones without compromising flavour, resulting in a well-balanced and delicious final product.

Milk and lemon juice

It won't thicken as much as traditional buttermilk, but milk and lemon juice are a great substitute when making scones, soda bread or pancakes, as lemon juice recreates that similar tangy flavour.

The longer you get the dough sit before baking it, the less your scones will rise. Try to bake the dough as soon as you finishing kneading and rolling it out. Letting the mixture sit too long will cause the gas bubbles from the leavening agent to disappear. These gas bubbles are what help the scones rise.

Not chilling the dough before baking: to really ace your scones, it helps to chill your dough again before it's baked. Using cold ingredients does help, but your hands will warm up the dough when you're working with it and the extra step of chilling will help you get the best result.

Why do you rub butter into flour for scones? ›

Why? When cold butter is rubbed into the flour, it creates flaky pockets of flavour (which soft, room temperature butter can't do). Once the cold butter and liquid (e.g milk) hits the oven, the water in the butter and cold liquid begins evaporating.

It is far better that the scone mixture is on the wet side, sticking to your fingers, as the scones will rise better. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it out with your hand, or use a rolling pin, to a thickness of 1-2 cm (1/2 – ¾ inch).

Butter must be COLD from the very start to when the dough enters the oven. The cold butter melts upon entering the oven and the water content in butter evaporates in steam. As the steam escapes, it bursts up and creates that beautiful tall, flaky, fluffy texture.

It would take quite a lot of salted butter to really produce a huge taste difference in baked goods, but it's still good to be able to fully control the amount of salt. 2. Unsalted butter is fresher.

Like pie dough, scones rely on cold butter to release steam during baking to create fluffy layers within the pastry. Keeping your butter cold is key to creating those layers, so read on for a tip on how to keep your butter as cold as long as possible throughout the dough-making process.

Some common reasons for dense scones are not using enough baking powder, overworking the dough and not baking with the oven at the correct temperature.

Recipes for scones sometimes provide a make-ahead option that involves refrigerating the dough overnight so it can simply be shaped and then popped into the oven the next day. But now we've found that resting the dough overnight has another benefit: It makes for more symmetrical and attractive pastries.

Pack the scones closely on the baking tray so they will support each other as they rise rather than spreading. Make scones the day you need them – they taste far better warm.