King Arthur Flour's Cheddar, Bacon and Scallion Scones

I recently attended two free demos from King Arthur Flour.  I was so excited because this was the first time they had come to Southern Nevada.  For those who think emails don't work, I am here to say yes they do, just be patient because I had been emailing KAF for years to come to Vegas.  I learned so much and even made a new friend!  That reminds me, I gotta email her about the second class.  Sorry, I'm drifting.  Anyways, one of the recipes they made were these scones which are beautiful.  I had seen the recipe on the KAF website before and had been meaning to try them and this was the incentive.

They will be perfect for the holiday season because you can make them up, freeze them and then bake directly from the freezer.  And Susan Reid, who conducted the demo, says they are better that way!  Have out of town guests?  Make these a few days before (or longer) and then simply pop them out of the freezer and bake.  No getting up early to slave away making breakfast.  Matter of fact, that's exactly what I did the other day.  We had our annual Halloween party and my daughter always has a few friends stay the night.  I usually try to make breakfast for them and these were one of the items.  Now on to the recipe:

Unbaked scone ready to freeze

King Arthur Flour’s Cheddar, Bacon and Scallion Scones

Ingredients:

·       2 cups (8 1/2 oz.) flour

·       1/2 tsp. salt

·       1 tbsp. baking powder

·       1 tsp. sugar

·       4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

·       1 cup (4 oz.) very coarsely grated or diced sharp cheddar cheese

·       1/2 cup (about 1 oz.) finely diced scallion tops (green part)

·       1/2 lb. bacon, cooked, cooled and crumbled (about 1 cup)

·       3/4-1 cup (6-8 oz.) heavy cream or milk, enough to make dough cohesive plus more for brushing onto scones

Directions:

    Preheat oven to 425º.  Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment.

    Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. 

    Work the butter into the flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly. 

    Work in the cheese, scallions and bacon till evenly distributed.

    Add 3/4 cup of the cream, stirring to combine just until it comes together.  Try squeezing the dough together; it it’s crumbly and won’t hang together, or if there are crumbs remaining in the bottom of the bowl, add cream until the dough comes together.  Transfer the shaggy dough to a well-floured surface.

    Pat the dough into a smooth 7" disk about 3/4" thick.  Transfer the disk to the prepared baking sheet.

    Use a knife or bench knife to cut the disk into 8 wedges, spreading the wedges part a bit on the pan.  Brush the scones with a bit of extra cream; this will help their crust brown.

    Bake the scones for 22-24 minutes, until they’re golden brown.  Remove them from the oven, and cool right on the pan.  Serve warm, or at room temperature.

    Note:  You can freeze the scones after shaping and cutting.  When ready to bake, take the scones out of the freezer and place onto baking sheet and bake. 

Servings:  8 large scones

The recipe originally calls for cheddar cheese, but I used sharp because I wanted it to be equal in flavor to the bacon and scallions (or green onions).  You can use whatever kind you like, just depends on preference.  It also calls for cooking the bacon, cooling and then crumbling it.  You can do that also, but I have found that cutting the bacon up and then frying it seems faster.  They also drain better and cool down faster.  Again, it's preference.  If you find that you have difficulty cutting up the bacon here are two tips:  Make sure your knife is honed and sharp and freeze the bacon a bit before cutting.  Will go much easier if you do those two things.  

If you don't have unsalted butter you can use regular salted, just reduce the salt in the recipe by 1/8th tsp.  Every salted stick of butter has 1/4 tsp. of salt.  In this recipe we are only using 1/2 of a stick therefore, reduce by 1/8th.  Honestly, I always keep unsalted butter in my fridge, just not in large quantities.  The reason is that as butter sits in the fridge, it can absorb flavors from other foods in there.  The salt in the salted varieties hides that flavor so you can keep it in larger quantities.  Unsalted doesn't have that benefit so it can develop a odd flavor.  But I believe it's better because it helps you control the salt in your recipe and it gives a unique flavor.  

If you are making the scones ahead of time, do not brush them with the cream before freezing.  I placed them on a cookie sheet and covered well with plastic wrap and then froze them.  Once they were completely frozen, I placed them in a freezer safe container with the stacks separated with parchment paper.  You can bake them directly from the freezer at 425 degrees, but I chose to bake them on convection so I reduced it by 25 degrees to 400. Now normally when baking on convection mode you also reduce the cooking time by 5 minutes, but since they were frozen it actually came out about the same.  I did turn the pan half way through baking. But watch them because every oven is different.

When working the butter into the flour, you can use a pastry blender.  In the demo, she used one initially and then worked it in a bit more with her hands.  In a way she was incorporating the laminated technique in a much smaller way.  Laminated is when you are rolling butter into between pastry as in croissants or between flour as in pie crusts.  You are creating a layer of butter that is encased with flour/pastry.  When it bakes, the moisture from the butter evaporates pushing those layers apart therefore creating a crust.  The flavor of the butter is left behind but with little or next to no moisture.  This will create a flakier scone. By the way, did you know that in spite of the spelling they really are pronounced scawns?  

We had a good little laugh in the demo when Susan was stirring the cream into the dough.  We here in Vegas have a tricky little thing we deal with, no moisture.  When we joke about a "dry" heat, we ain't kidding.  For my baking recipes I consistently have to add 2 tbsp. to 1/4 cup more moisture, which is why I have adjusted the recipe to 3/4-1 cup cream because it really depends on how dry it is that day.  Another little trick she taught us?  Use a spray bottle with water.  You know when you dump that biscuit, pie or scone dough onto the counter and you have some areas that have just enough moisture but some are more dry and shaggy?  Just give those areas a little squirt and you're not water logging the perfect areas!  That is major for us desert people!

When I mention to not overwork the dough, that is a common mistake with scones and biscuits.  When you work the dough you are forming gluten strands.  That's ok for breads, but not so much with flaky pastries.  Just work it until comes together, no more!

Don't mean to overwhelm you all with details, but I feel it's better to be armed and ready when those uh-oh's happen as they almost always do when trying out a new recipe.  Enjoy!