Biscuits go to London, the Magnificent Cream Scone

Dough is stiff, but not crumbly

note the pastry cutter 

An English tea is a wondrous culinary event.  Simple, but as stylish as an Audrey Hepburn movie.  A proper tea extends the boundaries well beyond the limits of teabags and sweet biscuits in the kitchen. It’s sitting in an ages old hotel, in London, or lounging in a quaint, half-timbered countryside inn, basking in the glow of an ancient fireplace, and being served a sumptuous bounty of finger sandwiches, short cakes, and buttery scones.  Small pots of fresh jam.  Cosied pots of fragrant tea.  You gaze wistfully at the tiered delicacies and wonder if you should break the spell and nibble these works of art.

            But, lacking the time and money to get to England, you can transform mere biscuits into scones and mere fruit into homemade jam.  Let’s do both, and I’ll  leave it to you to dream the rest.

            You have the recipe for biscuits.  Let’s alter it a bit and taste the difference.

Scones

2 Cups flour

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons butter

1 1/3 to 1 1/2 Cups cream

Mix the dry ingredients.   Cut in the butter.  I use a food processor, but two forks, or an old-fashioned pastry cutter work well. Note that you’re using less butter than for biscuits.

After cutting in the butter, mix in the cream to make a stiff dough.  Too stiff?  Add a little more cream.   Flatten the dough into a round, about  3/4 of an inch thick.  Cut the round into wedges.  Separate and bake the wedges on an ungreased baking sheet at 450ºF, or 230ºC for 12 minutes, or until the tops are golden.

            Now let’s make the jam.  Use fresh fruit, or the glass-bottled fruit you find in the supermarket.  Peaches are one of my favorites. I sometimes add some fresh ginger to the mix.   Finely chop the continents of the jar, reserving the liquid, and put the bits in a frying pan.  Add a cup of sugar.  Let the sugar melt, then cook the mixture until the jam is thickened.  That’s it!  If gets too thick, add some of the reserved fruit liquid.  Serve the jam fresh and hot, or refrigerate and use it later.

            Present your scones and jam to your friends, with a pot of Earl Grey, or English Breakfast Tea, or of a million other varieties of tea.

            After tasting these scones, you’ll be saving your pennies for a trip to England.

Sausage Rolls! From Plain Biscuits to Delectable Hors d’oeuvres

           Essential for every host or hostess is a never fail, crowd-pleasing hors d’oeuvre recipe. It’s one of those necessary entertainment accoutrements, like an extra bottle of wine, or a genuine Elvis Presley guitar pick.  But wait!  When you hear the words ‘hors d’oeuvres’ don’t grab your credit card and race to the gourmet deli for foie gras, black truffles, or smoked salmon.  Instead, serve easy to make sausage rolls, and you’ll have to fight your guests for the last one. I don’t mean the bland, intestine clearing grease balls from a fast food joint.  These are light, almost delicate, with a piquant taste to savor long after the tray is empty and your last guest is asleep on your couch in your favorite pajamas.

            From a previous post, you already have the basic biscuit recipe:  2 Cups flour, 3 Tablespoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 6 ounces butter, 1 Cup milk.  Mix the dry ingredients, cut in the butter, and mix in the milk.  Simple. Refer to the original post, if you’re a non-decision making ninny.

            A slight transformation from plain biscuit dough to sausage-rolls makes tid-bits as fancy as my Aunt Sally, who used to …well, there’s no sense in opening the family closet, except to say, what she did, she did with only the highest of society and she was always sober whenever she did whatever she did.

            But let’s get on with turning biscuits into suitably sophisticated noshes.  Make the basic biscuit recipe, but instead of cutting the dough into cute little rounds, or neat little squares, flour the surface of a counter and roll the whole mound of dough into roughly a rectangle.  Roll it about as thin as three Quarters or three Euros.  A little thicker is fine. For the criminally anal, see the photo of the rolled out dough with tape measure next to it.

            After the dough’s rolled, dot it with thumb-sized bits of raw sausage, then spread the sausage to cover the dough, leaving an inch or so at the top.  I use a cake server for the spreading, but fingers, toes, and butter knives work just as well. Re: the same photo.

            Roll up the sausage and dough, starting from one of the  long sides.  When you get to the top, moisten it slightly with water to seal. Get the cylinder as tight as you can.  Now pat the ends to make them even.  (See photo) Cover the roll with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.  If the roll is too long to fit comfortably, cut it in half, or in thirds, making sure everything is covered in plastic wrap, or the dough will dry out.  Let the raw roll (s) sit in the refrigerator for an hour or up to a day.  Refrigeration will set the dough so it’ll be easier to cut with a serrated knife.

            When you’re ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 450ºF, or 230ºC.  Crosscut the dough in rounds, like sawing a log, with each round about as thick as the width of your little finger.  If they’re out of round, nudge them back into shape. Put the rounds on an un-greased baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until they’re looking so golden and delicious that saliva drips from your chin.

            Put your platter of sausage biscuits on the buffet; make sure glasses are filled and stand back. Your demure guests will suddenly turn into maniacal carnivores.  When they beg for the recipe, tell them it’s an old family secret, and in memory of Aunt Sally, you can’t give it out to anyone who’s not naked.

Mastering the Ubiquitous Biscuit

This recipe was handed down by my illustrious ancestor, William the Baker, who in addition to his culinary skills, mastered several foreign languages simply by walking into bars and pinching foreign women’s breasts.  It’s how he learned such useful phrases as ‘cheeky bastard’ in Dutch, and ‘a rolling pin to your poolroom’ in Norwegian.  His name was later shortened to Stubby after pinching the breast of an Irish butcher’s wife.

            But, no matter his shortcomings, he was a hell of a baker and his specialty was biscuits.  This was more than a hundred years before Alfred Bisqslow made his first attempt at formulating Bisquick.  Back then, biscuits were reserved for special occasions such as weddings, divorces, and food fights.

            No longer merely for self-defense, the ubiquitous biscuit has come to mean the warmth and good fellowship of Granny’s kitchen, and a way to keep rambunctious young ‘ums out of the stone jar of lightnin’. So, gather ‘round chillins and let’s make some nice little resting places for creamy butter and fresh fruit jam.

Basic Biscuit Recipe – first take a slow pull outta da jug to activate the brain muffin

Then:  put 2 cups of flour, three tablespoons of baking powder, and a teaspoon of salt in a bowl.  Scramble all them things t-gether.  Next, finely cut in 6 tablespoons of butter.   (If your homestead has lectricity, cheat and use a food processor.)  Add a cup of milk to the flour mixture and stir until you have medium soft dough, not dripping, but not stiff.  Too wet?  Add a little more flour.  Drop the dough onto a floured surface and pat it out to thickness of about half an inch.  Cut into squares or rounds.  Place on an un-greased baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated, 450 degree F oven, unless you’re one of them crafty foreigners, then set your oven at 232 degrees C.  About 12 minutes later, you should be receiving compliments, or if you’re lucky, being called a cheeky bastard