Thursday 24 July 2008

Last of the baking practise for the show - cheese and olive scone bake

I was going to leave baking this until next week, but due to my car not starting i was feeling rather stressed yesterday. I had planned to go to Chelmsford, as there were things i wanted to look for there. So with feeling stressed and stuck at home, i decided that baking would take my mind off the car and could take out my frustrations with the mixing.

I was a little confused by this recipe, cheese and olives scones i had an image of in my mind but cheese and olive scone bake? I read through the recipe and everything seemed straight forwards until the end. It wanted the dough rolled out to fit a 12" x 9" roasting dish (which i struggled to find, but managed to find a pyrex that size eventually) and then marked into 12 squares. "mark" - what does than mean? How deep do you "mark" squares i wondered? just score the surface? cut half way through the dough? and the last phase of the recipe said "cool on a wire rack" so how do you separate the squares? cut them to give straight edges? or breaks them rustically?
And from reading the show schedule, i need to break them, as i am supposed to present "4 on a plate". Well, the recipe worked fine. No trouble at all, apart from the fact that i almost sprinkled the parmesan on top too early! It need 15 minutes in the oven first before the parmesan goes over the top and then another 5 minutes just to finish it off.
When it came out however, i was concerned it wasn't cooked as it felt very soft, but i need to remember that things firm up as they cool. I guess i just panic too easily. We ended up having a piece each at dinner last night and it was lovely. (Yes, i even had a piece - a smaller corner piece mind you). I thought it was possibly a little undercooked but mum said she didn't think it should be cooked for any longer. And thinking about it with the cheese stirred into the mixture and some moisture from the olives, it would be a moist scone. And the top was not too brown.

So yes, i think this one could be a success. And as i only need to present 4 square i can take 4 from the middle that are perfectly square instead of the rounded corners!

2 comments:

Margaret said...

That looks fantastic! I've actually never had a homemade scone before!

Jenny said...

thank you. would you like the recipe? i can email it to you if you like. so you can try it for yourself, i don't think there's anything in it that you can't get in the US!