A template - scones - savoury ones

I love templates of all kinds. This entire blog is made from a template. Alas it is no longer in Wix's vast library of templates, so I cannot show you what it looked like. Suffice to say it was a template for a rock star, and largely black with vivid green touches here and there. My previous website was based on one for a nutritionist I think, but that also isn't there anymore. I now couldn't tell you what made me decide on those particular templates, but anyway the point is, that my current website has nothing to do with rock stars, and does not feature black and green. It was the basic design that attracted me. All you need to make it your own is change the colour screen and the fonts - if you want - and of course the actual text and photographs. It's a basis on which to build.

And so it is with recipes. I have now been cooking for many, many years and so I have learnt how to extemporise on various basic dishes - pasta, traybakes, quiches, stews, braises, roasts, kebabs, pies and pasties ... But not cakes and other baked goods. Well I know how to make a basic shortcrust pastry without looking at a recipe and I can change it a bit by adding things like herbs or cheese, but I'm really not that good at going any further than that. And I couldn't possibly make a cake without a recipe.

Scones though - I think I'm on the verge of trusting myself to at least meddle with a basic recipe in a way that I never would for a cake.

There were two main impulses for this post - reheated curried pumpkin soup for dinner and, a desire to make some kind of savoury bread or scone to accompany it, that would use up a decaying corn on the cob, plus a glimpse of the word 'template' scribbled on the recipe for these Vegie-loaded pumpkin and cheese muffins which I must have either found in a Coles Magazine, or on the net when looking for a recipe for vegetable muffins. And as an aside I actually retrieved the leftovers from the freezer the other day and we had them with another soup. They were delicious but very crumbly.

Because, yes they are muffins, which are not the same as scones. There are eggs in muffins. Not in scones. The scribbled notation in full, by the way, was 'a good template' which gave me the idea of writing about scone templates, because generally when I am making a savoury scone I turn to this recipe for Zucchini and cheddar scones - Kate Tait/delicious. which I have had for simply ages, and which, over time I have used as a template for other vegetables. My experimentation has not been very adventurous however. The most I have done is substitute another vegetable - capsicum, celery ... for the zucchini. And whilst I may have used the specified buttermilk as the required liquid the first time I made it, since then, because scones are often a spur of the moment thing, I substitute a mix of milk and cream.

I'm still not quite brave enough to go completely without a recipe in front of me for scones however. What's the proportion of the flour, the cheese - there has to be cheese - the liquid? And how long do you cook them for and at what temperature. I can never remember these things. Mind you, if pushed I could probably have a go.

Anyway, having decided to go for scones today, not focaccia - my other goto soup accompaniment - I started flicking through my folders of recipes from here and there in an attempt to find my template recipe. And, as I flicked I noticed a couple of other similar recipes, and began to wonder whether I needed them all. Which gave me the template idea - and also the idea of revisiting those folders and looking at each recipe, one by one, to see whether I needed them or not. Maybe actually making them. Maybe I should tell myself to actually throw them out if I didn't want to make them.

My zucchini and cheddar template basics are 2 cups self-raising flour, 1 cup grated cheddar, 1 tsp caster sugar and 1 cup buttermilk. Plus 100g of zucchini and some chives. 18-10 minutes at 200ºC - though whether that's fan or not I don't know. I suspect not. Is this a real basic? Can you vary this? Well let's look at the other two scone recipes that I have collected.

Savoury scones from the late Valli Little back in my delicious. subscription days. There is double the amount of flour and they are not round scones, they are wedges from a circle. You cut the round into wedges on a baking tray so it is cooked flat on a tray, rather than squashed into a cake tin like my usual zucchini ones. It says it makes 8. even with all that extra flour.

They also have butter - 100g which my original zucchini ones do not; 4 cups of self-raising flour, 2 cups grated cheese, and 1 1/2 cups milk. Same temperature, same time.

The veggies are more but then there is more flour, so I'm guessing that you get more out of these. 150g ham, 1/2 each of a red and green capsicum. I have not written on this recipe so I have no idea whether they would be a success or not. Maybe I should try them tonight.

My last potential recipe is a bit more adventurous - Rustic pear, chilli and bacon scones from the Coles Magazine. And I have made this but not with pear. I actually substituted some pickled peaches that had been sitting at the back of my pantry for ages. 2 1/4 cups self-raising flour, 50g butter, 1/2 cup Parmesan. 1 cup buttermilk. Same temperature, same time.

I don't seem to have been overly impressed with these - I gave them 3* but seem to have somewhat grudgingly said beside this average score - 'well possibly more but not wow!' Interestingly even though there is less flour and cheese than Valli Little's Savoury scones you can make 12 with this mixture. Well I guess it depends how you cut them up.

Looking at those three recipes now it seems to me that the only major difference is the inclusion of butter in the latter two, and a tiny bit of sugar in the first one. The flavourings and the liquid are more or less up to you as long as the flavourings don't overwhelm the flour.

I had a quick look at Felicity Cloake's

How to make sweet or savoury scones which did indeed focus on the very basic. She had butter as well, just 50g, although to this she added 50g of lard. Well that's not going to happen, but I might consider rubbing in a bit of butter. The rest is much the same however, although she has not added anything other than cheese to her savoury version.

So am I brave enough to experiment and if so, using which basic recipe?

At the moment I think I'll try the Savoury scones version although whether I shall make wedges, triangles or circles I have not yet decided. I'm also thinking of trying yoghurt as the liquid - maybe loosened with milk or cream? Dan Lepard used yoghurt but he also had an egg, which I honestly think is wrong for scones. As for the rest - there will definitely be cheese - my three recipes varied from 2 cups to 1/2 cup, so maybe I'll settle for the middle and 1 cup. There will be that corn because that's really the whole raison d'être of this experiment. I'll shave off the kernels and cook them in a little butter in the microwave - so there's the butter. Perhaps some capsicum and/or dried tomato, maybe even a bit of chilli. And chives, for an oniony touch. I may even try to wing it without a recipe in front of me. My mother never used a recipe I'm sure, so surely I ought to be able to.

And then, when I've finished I shall throw out two of my three templates. Rustic pear is going to go I think, but we'll see about the other two. I definitely don't need all three though.

Amd maybe another time I'll look at other templates. I think I sort of did one on quiche a while back.

YEARS GONE BY

May 9

2024 - Vegetables then and now

2023 - Half a jar of sauerkraut

2022 - Nothing

2021 - Patatas bravas

2020 - Deleted

2019 - Nothing

2018 - For and against fish and chips

2017 - A recipe from the Australian Financial Review