[MR] REQ: Period scone recipes?

[Lisa and Ken Theriot]

Xavier wrote:

[Does anyone know of any period scone recipes?]

That depends on what you mean by a scone.  If you mean the sort of split 
biscuit that purists would call a scone, you won't find any, because you 
can't get that texture without baking powder.  There are certainly period 
bread product recipes that can produce a small round cake, but it won't be 
a scone.


Here's what Cindy Renfrow offers on her website, 
http://members.aol.com/renfrowcm/elizabethan.html

**********************************************
"Please send me a cookie recipe."
          They didn't use baking soda or baking powder back then, so you 
won't find a cookie
          recipe in the modern sense. Here is something close:

     To make fine Cakes. Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it 
in an earthen pot. Stop it close and set
     it in an Oven, and bake it as long as you would a Pasty of Venison, 
and when it is baked it will be full of clods.
     Then searce your flower through a fine sercer. Then take clouted 
Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best:
     then take sugar, cloves, Mace, saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as 
wil seeme to season your flower. Then
     put these things into the Creame, temper all together. Then put 
thereto your flower. So make your cakes. The
     paste will be very short; therefore make them very little. Lay paper 
under them. (From The Widowes Treasury
     by John Partridge, 1585.)

     A searce is a sieve.  The pre-baked flour will be very hard and lumpy; 
you will need to rub it through a sieve in
     order to use it.  Clouted creame is fresh unpasteurized cream that has 
been allowed to sit in an earthenware
     pan near the hearth overnight.  The cream forms a thick wrinkled 
yellow crust called clouted or clotted cream.
     If you don't have clouted cream, use butter.  Here is a worked out 
recipe for you:

     To every 3 cups of sifted baked flour, take the following:
     1 1/2 cups butter
     1 cup sugar
     1/4 teaspoon clove powder
     1/t teaspoon mace powder
     1/2 pinch saffron, crumbled
     3 egg yolks

     Preheat oven to 350? F.
     In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the spices 
and egg yolks, and beat to mix
     thoroughly.  Add the flour, and beat until smooth.  Use a non-stick 
cookie sheet, or line a cookie sheet with
     baking parchment.  Take the dough, 1 level teaspoonful at a time, and 
roll into small balls with your hands.
     (Resist the temptation to make them larger -- they won't cook in the 
middle if they're too big.)  Flatten the
     balls slightly, and place them 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. 
 Bake for 9 minutes, or until the cookies are
     puffed and golden around the edges.  Remove from oven and cool on wire 
racks.

     Makes about 6 dozen cookies.



I would say that this was as close as you could get to scones as well.



Adelaide