Scones are the perfect treat for lounging around your garden on a hot sunny day, and they only take 30 minutes to make from scratch as long as you use the right ingredients. Since we are in the middle of summer, it is common to leave butter out on the counter, but using warm or melting butter can ruin homemade scones by making them flat and greasy.
Tessa Arias, a baker and founder of Handle the Heat, has shared the key to baking fluffy scones is to instead always use cold, preferably frozen, butter. She said: “Butter must be cold from the very start until the dough enters the oven. The cold butter melts upon entering the oven and the water content in the butter evaporates in steam. As the steam escapes, it bursts up and creates that beautiful tall, flaky, fluffy texture.”
Warm butter blends too much into the other ingredients when you are making scones, which makes the dough extremely sticky and prevents it from rising properly in the oven.
It is important to make sure your milk and eggs are also cold before mixing them into your dough, because you need to make sure the butter is as solid as possible.
For the best results, cut your butter into cubes and freeze them beforehand, and you are guaranteed to get taller and lighter scones even if you do not have much baking experience.
How to make fluffier homemade scones
You will need:
- 380g of plain flour
- 60g of caster sugar
- 170g of unsalted butter (cold and cubed)
- 230ml of buttermilk
- One tablespoon of baking powder
- Two large eggs
- One teaspoon of vanilla extract
- Half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
- One teaspoon of sea salt
Method:
To begin, place a rack into the centre of your oven, then preheat to 200C. Line two trays with baking paper. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Then, take the butter out of the fridge or out of the freezer. Make sure it is cut into cubes the size of peas, then add it to the mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix together the buttermilk, vanilla extract and one egg. In the large mixing bowl push the dry ingredients towards the side to make a well.
Pour the wet ingredients from the separate bowl into the centre of the large mixing bowl. Stir just until everything is well combined and forms into a dough but try not to over mix.
Place the dough into a lightly floured work surface. Lightly knead until the dough is two centimetres thick and around 15 centimetres across.
Cut the dough into wedges or use a cookie cutter to cut them into perfect round scones. Place the scones on an oven tray but space them out so they are five centimetres apart.
In a small bowl, mix together one egg and a teaspoon of water to make a glaze. Brush it on the top of the scones so they come out the oven perfectly golden.
Place in the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. When the time is up, you will have warm fluffy scones that are perfect to enjoy at a picnic or afternoon tea.