This morning, I got out of bed. To make matters worse, I decided to bake something, at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. I hate baking for one reason: I don’t like to measure. Love to cook, hate to bake. I’ll make a sauce, throw together a stew or soup, all without benefit of measuring a single thing, and the result will be moan-inducing.
Today I decided to make scones—for the first time ever, while my husband “The Lunchmaker” toiled away.
Our conversation went something like this:
“Why am I doing this? Who calls for 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons of milk? That’s stupid!”
“You hate to bake for exactly the reason I like to: numbers.”
“I need a cooking show. I’m going to call it ‘The Bitchy Baker.’”
So anyway, I’m following the directions, which means reading every sentence 25 times because I can’t retain things I read that contain numbers, and I’m at the step where I have to “turn out the dough onto the floured countertop.” Well, that’s not going to happen! Has anyone seen my countertop? So I get a large cutting board and throw down the flour. I plop down the dough. I immediately notice two things, in this order:
1) It actually looks like the description says it should look (“shaggy”)
2) There are no berries in my mixed-berry scone dough!
Doh! I must have missed that step? Seems a little late now to add berries, but then again, it’s my first time and all, so who am I to judge? I glance at the next step: “Shape dough into a rectangle, 6” x 12” and cut into triangles.” No mention of berries! I scan the steps, backward. Still, no berries. The last time berries were mentioned in this recipe it was in the ingredients list: “1-3/4 cups of mixed berries” (because two cups, or better yet, ‘A couple of fat-fisted handfuls’ would have been too difficult).
F-WORD! They forgot to tell me to add the berries! And because I was so intent on following the directions, measuring and folding and scraping and such, it never occurred to me that anything was amiss. Who is this recipe writer?!
So I put the dough back into the bowl…the perfect, raggedy dough that I had taken so much care not to “over handle.” I poured the raspberries and sliced strawberries on top. Then, I mixed. Guess what happens when you add juicy berries to lovely scone dough? A gluey shit storm happens, that’s what. It was 6:55. The kids would be up soon.
Twenty years in the restaurant business was not lost on me, not to mention having come from a long line of fierce cooks. I quickly greased a baking dish and slid the snotty dough right into it. Into the oven it went for…hmmm. Well, I guess I’ll just have to improvise that, too!
Turns out, I made a scone cake. Mixed berry scone cake, to be precise, and it is amazing.
Photo Credits
Magazine – Courtesy of Cook’s Country, Aug/Sept 2015
All others by Lisa Lucke – All Rights Reserved
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