Strawberry-Basil Scones
I have an addiction to pastries…I love a good savory or sweet pastry for breakfast. When I walk into a bakery or coffee shop, I usually opt for a croissant or danish—thinking about the beautiful lamination and flakiness of the buttered layers has me drooling. I’ve never had an interest in scones because they are typically dense and not very flavorful. When I came across a berries and herb scone that blew my mind, I was obsessed with recreating the bright and refreshing flavor that I came up with my strawberry-basil scones.
All good scones begins with a consistent base recipe then you could pretty much put in any kind of ingredients to change up the flavor profile and make it savory or sweet. Well, I didn’t have a good recipe. In the past, all my scones either turned out too dense or too moist. It depends on a number of variables: sugar content, leavening agents, addition of liquids, and oven temperature. I decided to do some experimenting, I found three popular recipes online that had a large number of good reviews and put them to the test. The results are as followed:
Recipe 1: Used cream, higher sugar content, and lower heat made the batter spread and lost it’s triangle definition; cake-like texture.
Recipe 2: Sour cream, less sugar, and two leavening agents resulted in a denser form that had a good shaped; too closed texture.
Recipe 3: Higher baking temp, more flour, less cook time and sugar resulted in an almost perfect scone that maintained good height/shape but not quite sweet enough and uneven distribution of fruits; biscuit-like texture.
The verdict being that Recipe 3 had the most overall desired taste and texture so I am going to make some adjustments so that it’s perfect.
Ingredients
Basic Scone
2 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, cold
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cups heavy cream
Flavored Add-Ins
1 cup strawberries, chopped
1/2 cup basil, chiffonaded
Topping
2 tsp milk
2 Tablespoon raw sugar
Using a stand mixture, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Here’s the first important tip, grate froze butter! It will make it easier to work into the mixture while leaving even chunks of butter throughout—those butter pockets is what makes the pastries flaky. Second tip, make sure to finely dice up the strawberries and use a paper towel to absorb the moisture. My first few attempts, I sliced my strawberries and the pieces were too bigger to incorporate, also made my scones soggy. It’s easier to mix in fruit and herb at this point before adding the liquid. Whisk in the eggs, vanilla, and milk gently. Stir until all is moistened and comes together.
Once the batter forms dough, turn it out on a lightly floured surface and form into a disc about and 3/4-1 inch high. I cut mine into six triangular pieces and transfer it onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Scones will expand as it bakes so leave space in between each one. Brush each scone with milk and top with the raw sugar to give it a nice golden, crispy top. At this point, I chill my scones in the freezer for 30 minutes before baking so that the gluten relaxes and becomes tenderer with a higher rise.
Bake the scones at 425 degrees F for about 18 minutes until it’s a light golden brown. Baking time could vary between 18-23 minutes depending on your oven. Allow the scones to cool for about five minutes and enjoy!
