Scones

I really like scones. I like most food, but there's something satisfying about scones and tea or coffee. I also really like tea and coffee. So there.

I just baked two batches of scones. Here's one way to think about the parts to a scone:

Structure
Most scone recipes require about 1.75-2 cups; I used whole wheat flour. Flour provides the gluten in baked goods. I think of gluten as being like the skeleton on which the rest of the scone hangs. It also makes the skin, because it's elastic and stretches to accommodate things like fat, air, and fruit.
Leavening agents are baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda requires an acidic liquid to interact with it in order to make air bubbles. Baking powder does not require an acidic liquid. Remember experimenting with baking powder in elementary school science class? We had to make a volcano using baking powder. Brilliant exercise for hyper kids.

Volumizing flavor
Fat is tasty. Most scone recipes direct you to cut in solid butter. You cut it in because you want to intersperse it well, but you don't use melted butter, because that would risk de-activating the leavening agents. Fat also helps to bulk up the structure, adding heft and substance as well as tenderness to the structure. The other place where fat and substance comes in is through your reactive liquid moistening agent in the form of milk, buttermilk, or plain yogurt. Buttermilk and yogurt are acidic and if you use baking soda (which is basic), you would have to use one or the other to create your carbon dioxide bubbles in the flour. Powder and milk are fine together because baking powder is neutral.

Glue and texturizer
Making it all stick together is egg. It turns out egg isn't absolutely necessary for scones, but it does hold everything together and changes the texture a bit. It may make a difference if you beat the egg before adding it, or if you don't. I'm not sure at all. Guess which one I did? (Hint: lazy)

Taste, decoration and interest
Sugar is nice. It really is. And if you use agave nectar, be forewarned, you need a good amount. I also added a smattering of oats, some orange zest, and in one batch used cranberries, and in the other, currants.

Batch 1 - flour, risers (leavening agents), fat, yogurt, a dash of water, and agave nectar, then oats, cranberries and orange zest.
Notes: Forgot the egg, added too much liquid.
Results: Results were interesting. The risers were critical to preventing this from being a total flop (literally) as were the cranberries and orange zest. The agave nectar seemed to evaporate, because it doesn't really taste sweet at all.

Batch 2 - flour, risers, fat, yogurt, cane sugar and agave nectar, egg, then oats, currants and orange zest, a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon.
Notes: Baked it for maybe a smidge too long so that the edges were a bit fried.
Results: The interesting thing about this was that it really didn't hold its shape as well as the first batch, even though the first batch had a lot more liquid. I blame the yogurt (in both batches) for adding more than enough liquid. But it was very tasty because of the orange zest and butter interaction, perhaps also because of the spices. I was a little surprised. The basic structure of flour, risers, fat and sugar was intact as in the first batch, and the fruit was normal tasting, but somehow the interaction of the fat and orange zest added an extra measure of tastiness.

Hmm, further scone testing to come.