Monday, November 27, 2006

Baking Adventures - Shortscones ??

Dear Foodies,


This is what I conjured up for Nandita's WBB # 7 - Baking for Breakfast event. Will be back with the recipe in sometime :-)

Off-late I have been trying to bake a lil whenever I can manage some free time. I dont like using eggs and so keep browsing for recipes that dont need it. Substituting eggs in a recipe is tricky, as you more often then not have to compromise on the texture or the taste. I am still on the look out for egg-less cake recipes, so any of you who have some do share them with me :-).

But in the meantime I was also looking at recipes for cookies and scones too. That was when I chanced upon this amazing blog, Baking Sheetby Nic. She has a huge collection of recipes which are soo well written and neatly explained. The first scone I had was a cinnamon scone at Panera bread and it was love at first bite :-) , so the moment I saw the scone recipes on Nic's site I was really excited to make some at home. I was going through the list of cookies and scone recipe she has and found a lot of them that did not need eggs. Browsing through her recipes frequently gave me a picture of the basic method and I experimented with the flavors depending on what I had in hand. I have made chocolate chip scones, coffee scones and berry scones, all of which were absolutely delicious. I only made about 4-5 medium sized scones each time and so they vanished before I and my friends were done tasting them. I have been planning ever since to make a bigger batch that would last a few breakfasts alteast, but never found the time or the motivation to do so.


When Nandita unveiled the theme for WBB event to be Baking, I rushed to my apt that very evening to bake some scones. Well it was actually night by then, I went home at 11:00pm and started out :-) I planned on making scones, but once the dough was ready I was in no mood of shaping them like those triangles and so shaped them randomly like cookies or bit sized scones. I then realised that shortbreads are, vaguely put, the cookie shaped version of scones. So now I dint know what I had made.....and so I named them ShortScones ..hehe..

I am going to give you a rough estimate of the ingredients I used. As I am still learning how to bake the perfect scones, I would suggest that you go over the Nic's blog for her detailed recipes.

Ingredients:

Dry Ingredients:
  • 1 1/2 cup - All purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup - Sugar, I used the fine powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp - baking powder
  • 1/2 cup - Butter, chilled and cubed ( I used half a stick of butter)
  • a pinch of salt
Any of these: 1/3rd to 1/4th cup
  • your choice of chopped berries (strawberries,raspberries,blueberries,cranberries)
  • dry fruits and nuts (apricots, raisins, walnuts,peacans)
My choice:
  1. 1/3 cup- Chocolate chips + 2 Tbsp - Cocoa powder
  2. 2 Tbsp mango pulp + 1 tsp - Elaichi powder
Wet Ingredients: 1-2 Tbsp of
  • Water or Orange juice/Lemon juice + a few drops of the zest or Buttermilk or Soymilk
Procedure: ( Preheat oven to 300deg F)
  1. In a bowl sieve in the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the sugar and mix well, toss in the cubed butter. And rub it into the flour mix with your hands by applying slight pressure on the cubes forming a coarse flour mix.
  2. Now add in your choice of berries/dry fruits/choco chips and mix well
  3. Next add the wet ingredients a tsp at a time and get the flour mix together, so you can shape it. When using berries you will need very little of the liquid to do the job.
  4. The mixture does not have to be kneaded, and should be loosely packed, shape the into a lil thick disc and make cuts with a blunt knife like you would to a pizza and place it on a parchment paper lined baking dish.
  5. Bake for about 15-20 mins, until a tap on the surface gives a hollow sound and it has a wonderful golden brown color. You can also test it withthe knife coming out clean when done trick.
  6. Break the individual scones along the cuts you made and enjoy one right out of the oven and try to store the rest if you can stop yourself from eating more ;-)
While baking these treats the way I have done them, keep in mind that they continue to cook for a little while after being taken out of the oven. The Cardamom- Mango rounds and nankatai were a lil soft when I removed them from the oven but turned crisp on cooling. So time them accordingly.


Chocolate Hearts :-)
I made a heart-shaped batch of chocolate chip + cocoa powder combo. These were my favorites, well ofcourse I shud add I am a huge chocolate fan !! Anything that has to do with chocolate or coffee or soft toys will grab me 100% :-) The chocolate chips that were at the center did not totally melt, but were warm when rite out of the oven and gave a nice gooey, chocolatey taste that was very very delicious. I dusted these with some icing sugar just for the heck of it :D I am going to try refining this recipe to get a near brownie taste soon.

Cardamom-Mango rounds
The second batch was with the cardamom powder and mango pulp, shaped as round cookies with a cashew topped on each. I arranged these cookes too close to each other in the tray and so they came out as one big cookie that I had to break. The mango pulp did not contribute much to the taste as the quantity was far too less to dominate. The cardamom powder was the ruler. This cookie very dearly resembled an Indian sweet, but niether me nor my friends could pin-point at the name though. Let me know if you try these out :-)

Savoury Nankatai's
I also tried out savoury Nankhatias taking hints from Jyotsna's recipe. Instead of 1/2 cup of sugar and cashews I added just 1/4th cup sugar and 2 tsp of salt. I also added some hand-crushed cumin seeds. I did add some vanilla essence but skipped the saffron in her recipe. I also dont think you will need 1/2 cup of butter, a little more than 1/4th of a cup ( 1/3rd of the stick) should be good, I found my biscuits too buttery and a little more flour would have helped.

These biscuits posed wonderful sweet and salty contrast to the other two. The cumin seeds in the biscuits added a very nice flavor, though I added just about a pinch of seeds, the flavor spread through every bite. Absolutely yummy !!


I warmed the chocolate hearts and Cardamom- mango rounds for 5 sec before eating them and along with a glass of warm milk or hot coffee/tea, made up our breakfast for a few days :-), all thanks to Nandita ofcourse for getting me to bake and thanks to Nic and Jyotsna for their wonderful recipes :-)

P.S: Here is Nabeela's recipe for scones. She has pics showing the usual method of shaping scones :-)

17 thoughts:

Anonymous said...

MMM ! Scones & coffee, I'll love this kind of breakfast everyday :)

How was ur thanksgiving shopping ??

Anonymous said...

They look fab ....... and the recipe looks pretty decent.... :) Thanks. :)

www.mykhazanaofrecipes.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

Those nankhatais are looking delicious...after so many posts on it, I just may have to succumb and make some of my own!

FH said...

Yummy! Guess what I have in my blog?! :D Scottish scones and Tea.

Delicious and enjoy:))

Anonymous said...

Priya,
You tempt me to bake some cookies.Afterall I am trying to go on severe diet to shed my baby weight.I think you wouldn't allow me to do it.:-)

Seema Bhat said...

hey priya nan katai oh my one of my all time fav.your comment on my blog led me to your blog and i am blessed i must say ...lot of good recipies in here and good presentation as well ...
Cheers
Seema

Sia said...

hi priya...
i amazed to see so many recipes in one single post... i have to try some of these soon...
cheers

Nabeela said...

oh I LOVE scones! I experimented a little too when I made my first scone...but you went all the way with your experimenting..kudos to you!
Here's my scone recipe if you're interested
http://trialsnerror.blogspot.com/2006/07/chocolate-chip-scones.html

Shah cooks said...

lovely looking scones. i am just enjoying all the baking going on.

Lakshmik said...

So many different varieties of scones. Should give it a try.

Mythreyee said...

hi priya, thanks a lot for your feedback. I have edited the procedure (for eggless cake) for better results. See to it that the batter is not too stiff. thanks once again.

Mythreyee said...

great recipes. thanks.

Ashwini said...

Way to go girl...looks like a baking binge

Rajesh &Shankari said...

how do you have the time in between all your assigments..simply delish

Rajesh &Shankari said...

how do you have the time in between all your assigments..simply delish

Priya said...


Thank you !! All of you seemed to have liked my Shortscones(??) hehe..do try them out and let your imagination guide you through :-)They are really easy and quick too...It took me just over an hour to make a lil batch of the three :-)

Shankari,even my frnds aski me the same Q..Cooking has become my hobby, I cook when I am sad or happy, stressed or relaxed !! My frnds have even warned against entering the kitchen sometimes !! I just need an excuse to cook :-D haha

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