Drop Scones
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:22 pm
These small, thick, miniature pancakes were known as 'girdle scones' in my family. It's typical in north east England to call a griddle a girdle. The 'scone' part is debatable - for many people a girdle scone (or griddle scone) is a bready, crumbly affair, a pan-fried equivalent of an oven-baked scone, which is itself a close relative of the north American 'biscuit', which is differentiated as being a whole lot less crumbly than a real British scone. Somewhere amongst all this is the realisation that batter and dough are two ends of a spectrum, and the difference lies in the fluid content.
Never mind. For my purposes, let's call a small thick pancake made from batter rather than dough a 'drop scone'. The pan-fried bread-like scones I know of as 'Geordie Hinnies' or Welsh Cakes, and I'll not deal with them today. Let's talk about drop scones. They came to mind in part because of the thread about Marmite. There was another substance available in a traditional English kitchen that I remembered: Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup. A splendid old-fashioned tin, with a dead lion (!) surrounded by bees and the motto "Out of the strong came forth sweetness" All dreadfully Old Testament. However, just as a batter made Yorkshire pudding to fill up the family so they might eat less meat, drop scones made a cheap meal for miners' families in the Durham coalfields, and with some Golden Syrup on top they still make a lovely treat. What you need will be:
6oz all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1½oz sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 eggs
1 gill/120ml//¼ US pint of milk (I enjoyed that bit!)
Mix the dry ingredients, add the eggs and milk and whisk into a thick batter. I don't measure the milk - I add it until the batter is a bit thicker and gooier than I would want for pancakes, but that measure seems about right. Heat a non-stick flat-bottomed pan and wipe it with an oil-soaked bundle of kitchen paper (which you will keep to refresh the surface as you go along). Take a one tablespoon measure of the batter and pour it onto the hot pan, repeating three times so there is a 2-3" pancake at each cardinal point. If your pan is big enough, you might fit a fifth in the middle. Let them cook until the top loses its lustre and appears slightly dull - at this point the top will be full of craters from burst bubbles, and this will take just 1-2 minutes. Flip each over and cook the other side for a further minute. Place onto a warmed plate and continue until the batter is all gone and the plate has a stack of drop scones crying out to be eaten.
Serve with Golden Syrup. I think a bottle or tin of syrup and a teaspoon is the way to go, and let people apply it themselves. They don't keep well, so eat them all!
Chris
PS If you try very hard you might find a tin like the one above that is red rather than green. This is Tate & Lyle Black Treacle, which is about a hundred-fold more concentrated than north American molasses. Use, and enjoy, carefully. It is very addictive.
Never mind. For my purposes, let's call a small thick pancake made from batter rather than dough a 'drop scone'. The pan-fried bread-like scones I know of as 'Geordie Hinnies' or Welsh Cakes, and I'll not deal with them today. Let's talk about drop scones. They came to mind in part because of the thread about Marmite. There was another substance available in a traditional English kitchen that I remembered: Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup. A splendid old-fashioned tin, with a dead lion (!) surrounded by bees and the motto "Out of the strong came forth sweetness" All dreadfully Old Testament. However, just as a batter made Yorkshire pudding to fill up the family so they might eat less meat, drop scones made a cheap meal for miners' families in the Durham coalfields, and with some Golden Syrup on top they still make a lovely treat. What you need will be:
6oz all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1½oz sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 eggs
1 gill/120ml//¼ US pint of milk (I enjoyed that bit!)
Mix the dry ingredients, add the eggs and milk and whisk into a thick batter. I don't measure the milk - I add it until the batter is a bit thicker and gooier than I would want for pancakes, but that measure seems about right. Heat a non-stick flat-bottomed pan and wipe it with an oil-soaked bundle of kitchen paper (which you will keep to refresh the surface as you go along). Take a one tablespoon measure of the batter and pour it onto the hot pan, repeating three times so there is a 2-3" pancake at each cardinal point. If your pan is big enough, you might fit a fifth in the middle. Let them cook until the top loses its lustre and appears slightly dull - at this point the top will be full of craters from burst bubbles, and this will take just 1-2 minutes. Flip each over and cook the other side for a further minute. Place onto a warmed plate and continue until the batter is all gone and the plate has a stack of drop scones crying out to be eaten.
Serve with Golden Syrup. I think a bottle or tin of syrup and a teaspoon is the way to go, and let people apply it themselves. They don't keep well, so eat them all!
Chris
PS If you try very hard you might find a tin like the one above that is red rather than green. This is Tate & Lyle Black Treacle, which is about a hundred-fold more concentrated than north American molasses. Use, and enjoy, carefully. It is very addictive.