A Recipe: Scones

Although we are primarily a bread-making bakery, we do occasionally make sweet treats for events and the holidays. One of our favorites is scones. Whenever a scone-making occasion comes up, we tend to make a few (or a lot!) extra for bakers’ morning snacks…..

What makes our scones special is that they are made with 50% bread flour and 50% whole grain flour. The whole grain flour adds a pop of flavor that will make you never want another all “white” flour scone again. Just the basic recipe has so much flavor that you almost don’t need to mix in any chocolate or nuts. Almost….

I’m sharing our recipe below. Happy baking! (Remember, you can purchase our flour at these locations.)

INGREDIENTS:

Pastry Flour 480g Whole Grain Flour 480g Baking Powder 58g Salt 10g Sugar 170g Butter, cubed/cold 284g Heavy Cream 2 cups Half & Half 2 cups Additions (chocolate, dried fruit) 210g

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Combine dries and mix. Cut cubed, cold butter into the dries, creating small pea sized clumps. Add heavy cream and half & half, mixing until just combined. Do not over mix! You want clumps of butter in the dough.

2. Flatten dough to 1.5 inches thick and divide using a scone cutter or a knife.

3. Brush tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar before baking.

4. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

5. Enjoy!

A Note on Freshly Milled Flour

We’ve already discussed why we bakers here at Baker’s Field mill our own flour. As eaters, we love the nutrition and flavor. As bakers, we relish the control and craft. All excellent reasons for you, the home baker, to add our bakery-milled flour to your kitchen pantry. However, our flour does behave differently than the industrial flour you may be using now. We are here to help you adjust and discover the miracle of fresh flour!

1. The general rule is that fresh flour tends to need more hydration than industrial flour. So if you’re baking bread, keep this in mind. Be ready to use more water.

2. Fresh flour has a lower tolerance for mixing; you will not need to mix or fold dough made with our flour as aggressively as you may be used to.

3. Lastly, each variety of grain is different. So if one month you buy Prosper, it may perform differently than the variety you buy the following month (say, Ingmar). Making these adjustments requires some practice and calculating; this is part of the fun!  (Check out our online flour shop, which notes the differences between the varieties we sell.)

4. In general, bread made with fresh flour will not get as much volume as bread baked with industrial flour. Know this before you begin so you won’t be surprised.

5. You can always email us your specific flour questions. We love hearing from you and are happy to answer questions. Email: contact@bakersfieldflour.com

You may find the differences between our flour types to be confusing. I’m going to break them down for you:

BREAD FLOUR: Our high-extraction bread flour is sifted to remove some of the bran and highlight the germ and the endosperm. This is different than the “white” industrial flour you may be used to buying, which contains no germ. We prefer to keep the germ and some of the bran in the flour for both flavor and nutrition. A hard red spring wheat grain, the defining characteristic of bread flour is creamier bread.

Best Use: bread and pizza

WHOLE GRAIN FLOUR: Commonly known as whole wheat flour, this variety of hard red spring wheat flour contains the entire grain -- the bran, germ, and the endosperm. This is a highly nutrient rich flour. We love making bread that uses all the parts of the grain -- the flavor is earthy and grassy and just special!

Best Use: bread, pasta, and grain-forward sweet treats

PASTRY FLOUR: We sift organic soft white winter wheat for this flour, removing some of the bran. This flour can be used like all-purpose flour. It is lower in protein (and therefore gluten) than our bread flour, and therefore is not meant to be used for bread.

Best Use: cookies, pies, muffins, cakes