Craving a sweet midday treat? There's not much better than a sweet, freshly baked perfect scone. Made in both sweet and savory varieties, there's an easy scone recipe out there that's sure to curb your cravings—you just have to learn how to make it first! Mastering the art of scone making takes a bit of practice, and at first, it may sound a bit overwhelming.
That being said, if you enjoy spending time in the kitchen and are up for a challenge, then we're here to help. Like all baked goods, when making scones, each step must be carefully followed to ensure that your scones recipe turns out as you'd hoped. Once you master the scone-making process, making this dessert will be a piece of cake (or scone!).
To help you get started, we've enlisted the help of Bob's Red Mill baking experts. Keep scrolling for a list of tips and tricks on how to make scones moist and avoid common baking issues.
Moist Scones Begins With The Ingredients
To improve your scone-making skills, you must set yourself up for success and choose high-quality ingredients that will yield bakery-quality baked goods. Purchasing wholesome and healthy foods is an excellent way to ensure that the ingredients you're filling your scones (and your stomach) with are something to be proud of.
Additionally, when cooking with quality ingredients, your baked goods will retain many more nutrients than processed foods. In many cases, processed and artificial ingredients have come in contact with unhealthy substances that may negatively affect your health.
To ensure that your treats are as great tasting and good for you as possible, we recommend avoiding processed ingredients and using whole ones.
Not sure which ingredients are of high quality? Here are a few of our favorite wholesome foods to bake with.
Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour
As a premium baking flour that has been freshly milled from certified organic, hard red wheat, you can use this flour to produce various baked goods—including scones. Unbleached and unenriched, this Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour is entirely free of potassium bromate. However, be sure to follow the scones recipe requirements so that you won't end up having flat scones.
Paleo Baking Flour
An easy way to take the guesswork out of grain free baking, use this Paleo Baking Flour to create delicious baked goods and desserts. A simple flour blend makes it easy to recreate paleo and grain free versions of all of your favorite baked recipes.
Unbleached White Fine Pastry Flour
A fine pastry flour milled from soft white wheat, this Unbleached White Fine Pastry Flour has a low protein content that makes it ideal when creating tender baked goods. Use it to create your favorite moist pastries or for flaky pie crusts.
Mixing Scones
Now that you know the best ingredients to use when making scones, it's time to talk about how to combine those ingredients. The process of mixing the perfect scone batter plays a significant role in the dessert's texture and overall taste. To make a well-mixed batter that will produce moist, delicious scones, use the following tips.
Skip The Food Processor
When mixing scones, ditch the food processor and use a pastry blender or cutter instead. Doing so will protect your scone dough from overmixing and allow you to test it throughout the process. To use a pastry cutter when mixing scones, start by pressing it into the mixture and cutting the batter as you go. Thoroughly mix the batter by wiping the edge clean of the dough as needed.
Go Light on the Wet Ingredients
Wet ingredients don't always result in a moist scone. In fact, adding too much liquid to any basic scone recipe can create a dense texture that isn't very appetizing. To avoid overdoing it, only add half of the amount of called-for buttermilk to the dry ingredients. Then begin mixing your dough and slowly add more liquid as needed. The ideal dough texture will be slightly sticky and crumbly with bits of flour dregs.
Add Frozen Fruit Last
When baking with frozen fruit, you'll want to make sure it's the last ingredient added to basic scone recipe. Adding frozen fruit like frozen blueberries earlier in the scone-making process will allow the juices to begin melting before they have time to be cooked in the oven. The result? Soggy fruit and soggy scones.
Store Your Dough Properly
If you're whipping up a large batch of dough to use later on, be sure to store it properly. Once your dough is crumbly in texture, pack it into a sealed plastic bag and freeze until you're ready to bake it. To use the dough, avoid using the microwave and thaw it at room temperature. Preparing dough ahead of time is a great way to cook large batches of scones for special occasions and events where you will be catering to a crowd.
Shaping Scones
You've purchased high-quality ingredients and mixed them to perfection; now what? It's time to shape your scones. Achieving the right shaped scone will ensure that your scones not only taste great, but they look great as well! Learn how to shape scones properly by reviewing the following tips.
Flour Your Cutting Board
A floured cutting board will prevent the dough from sticking to the surface and breaking shape. To begin shaping your scones, move a dough ball from the mixing bowl to your cutting board and start forming. If you notice that the dough is too crumbly when placed on the board, slowly add a bit more buttermilk until the texture improves. Conversely, if the dough is too sticky, add more flour.
Flour Your Hands
A vital part of shaping dough is making sure it doesn't stick to any surface, including your hands. Just as you would flour a cutting board, flour your hands before handling the dough. Next, begin shaping the scone dough into a disc-like shape. The larger the disc, the larger and more moist the scone will be. On the contrary, a small disc shape will create a smaller and drier scone.
Use a Gentle Touch
To avoid compressing the dough and creating an overly dense scone, use a light touch. Gently pat the edges and the top of the scone to make it round. Most scones should be roughly 1.5 inches tall and 8 inches in diameter.
Cutting Scones
The next step in making your scones moist is to cut them properly. While cutting scones is a pretty straightforward process, there are a few pointers to keep in mind when doing so.
Choose Your Shape
Before cutting your scones, you'll need to choose a shape to cut them into. Scones can be all shapes and sizes, including hearts, circles, and triangles. For an American-style scone, you'll want to cut the dough into wedges.
Due to their size and shape, American scones are often dense, which makes them ideal for holding toppings. To create a British-style scone, opt for a rounder shape. This round shape will help produce a less-dense texture that's full of moisture.
Use Up All of Your Dough
Now that you've spent all of this time perfecting your dough, you'll want to make sure you use it all. To ensure that dough isn't wasted, place all of your cut scones on a parchment-lined or floured baking sheet and continue to cut more scones until you are completely out of dough. If you're left with bits and pieces of dough and flour dregs, you can add a small amount of buttermilk to them and use them as extra dough.
Bake Your Scones
Last but not least, you will need to bake your scones correctly if you'd like to produce a moist texture. The Bob's Red Mill Experts put together a list of their most valued baking tips below.
Keep The Scones Cold
After shaping the scones, keep the batter as cold as possible before placing them into the oven to cook. Cold temperatures will help the ingredients bind together and allow the scones to rise fully.
Check Your Oven's Temperature
It's vital that when baking scones, your oven's temperature is accurate. For a fail-proof baking experience, make sure your oven is fully preheated before placing your scones into it. Additionally, you can use an oven thermometer to ensure that your oven's temperature settings are accurate to get perfectly baked scones.
Actively Check Your Scones While Baking
The size of a scone matters and will determine the necessary amount of baking time. Large scones bake more slowly and will need about 13 to 20 minutes in the oven. Smaller scones will cook more quickly and bake in about 8 to 10 minutes. Baking times may vary with different ovens, which means you'll need to check on your scones during the baking process to determine if they need more or less time.
Learn how to make moist scones like a pro, and use the tips and tricks in this guide when creating your next scone recipe. From mixing the batter to baking the final product, the step-by-step process above will turn you into an expert chef in no time.
Plus, after making one perfect batch of delicious scones, making another will be a piece of cake. From everyone at Bob's Red Mill, we hope that your day is full of happiness and delicious baked goods!
