May frequently brings bright sunshine and extended daylight hours, making it a delightful time to spend outdoors and savour simple picnic fare like freshly baked scones. There's something particularly soothing about relaxing in the open air with homemade bakes and a cuppa, and scones are remarkably swift to make, with the dough ready in roughly 15 minutes.
Nevertheless, the secret to success lies not only in the baking itself, but in selecting the correct ingredients at the supermarket, as this determines whether you end up with tall fluffy scones or flat, crumbly ones. Danielle Ellis, a French-trained baker and founder of Severn Bites, has revealed that one of the most crucial ingredients for helping scones rise is buttermilk.
She explained: "The first ingredient to seek out is buttermilk. Once I started making scones with buttermilk, they got better and better. It's easy to find in many farmers' markets (including Stroud) and most supermarkets, and it keeps remarkably well."
Buttermilk is the liquid remaining after churning butter from cream, and you can either prepare it yourself or locate it in the baking aisle of most supermarkets. The mild acidity in the buttermilk reacts with the baking powder, producing bubbles in the dough as it bakes, helping the scones to rise wonderfully in the oven.
Using buttermilk also helps to tenderise the gluten in the flour, giving the scones a light and delicate texture rather than something dense or bread-like. Buttermilk is slightly thick and provides additional moisture to the dough, delivering a richer taste without requiring lots of fat, while also preventing the scones from becoming dry. Overall, it helps you create taller, lighter and more delicious scones, so even if you're baking them for the first time, they're far more likely to turn out brilliantly.
