Food Blog

Last week a restaurant client of mine needed an emergency ad done. As I put one together on her bar with my laptop, she remarked how ‘clever’ I was that I could do so . Then she asked “but can you make a scone?” as she bit into one she had made for her High Tea service. I answered “sure I can”. But then realized I really didn’t know if I could or not.

This morning I saw Pro Bono Baker’s Sage, Pine Nut, and Pecornino Scone recipe and was pretty confident I could improvise a few ingredients and get some nice looking scones to feature here and prove I could do it. I had rosemary and ginger, and subsituted them for the sage and Pecorino. I threw in a couple of extra tablespoons of butter, since I wanted them moist, not crumbly-dry like a lot of scones.

A few minutes into it when I got to the part that read “Combine all into a sticky dough, do not over mix. When just coming together knead a few times with lightly floured hands” There was no way I was going to put my hands into the soupy goo I had just made. You just can’t knead soup.

Something had gone horribly wrong and I couldn’t figure out what it was, maybe my measurements were off, maybe the extra butter messed it up, maybe last nights rain saturated my flour, maybe the honey I used instead of the pesto did something weird.

I tried to repair it by adding more flour. And more flour, and more flour. There was no way I was going to be able to cut, shape or form the sticky mess I wound up with. I made a couple of triangles, spooned the rest onto a baking sheet in balls and put it in the oven, expecting the overbeaten mess to fossilize as I washed the ooze off most of the surfaces of my kitchen.

Surprisingly, they turned out really good, they rose, they’re nice and moist, and the rosemary-ginger combo worked out nicely. I was tempted to start over, to try to make nicer ones, and since I’m still not sure I can make them.