Lovely Librarians I hope you have been starving your children (well, no, not really obviously) so that they will be willing to sample these. I put my money where my oven is and went on an EPIC ALTERNATE FLOUR BUYING BINGE this weekend. And after a happy reorganisation of the baking shelf in the pantry, I'm ready to go.
I present:
FIG BUCKWHEAT SCONES
- 1 cup buckwheat flour
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup / 8 oz Fig Butter
Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, pouring back into the bowl any bits of grain or other ingredients that may remain in the sifter. Add the butter and mix until well combined. Add the cream and gently mix it into the flour with a spatula until the dough is just combined. 
Use a pastry scraper or a spatula to transfer the dough onto a well-floured surface. It will be sticky, so flour your hands and pat the dough into a rectangle. Grab a rolling pin and roll the dough into a rectangle that is 8 inches wide, 16 inches long, and 3/4 inch thick. As you’re rolling, periodically run a pastry scraper or spatula underneath to loosen the dough, flour the surface, and continue rolling.
Spread the fig butter over the dough. Roll the long edge of the dough up, patting the dough as you roll so that it forms a neat log 16 inches long. Roll the finished log so that the seam is on the bottom and the weight of the roll seals the edge.
Use a sharp knife to slice the log in half. Put the halves on a baking sheet or plate, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. (The dough can be kept, covered, in the refrigerator for 2 days.) Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Take both logs out of the refrigerator and cut each half into 6 equal pieces about 11/4 inches wide. Place each scone flat, with the spiral of the fig butter facing up, on a baking sheet. Give the scones a squeeze to shape them into rounds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.
BEETLE NOTES
So let's get the first issue out of the way. Kim Boyce calls these "scones." It would be great if I felt comfortable calling what I made yesterday scones too, but I don't know if they visually make the grade. I'm wondering if there's a category that falls slightly short of "scone" that includes "things that might be round if you look at them sideways" or "things that don't so much resemble a pastry as a lump of dough with fig jam in the middle" or "I hope to God these taste ok because they kind of look like I dropped the baking sheet before I put them in the oven." They're not the prettiest things in the world. My second dough log, I will say, turned out much better than the first (hah, how about THAT learning curve) but still. So maybe not "scones." Maybe "buns." Maybe "rolls." Something much more general and much less intimidating. Let's go with "Fig Buns" because that sounds sort of elusive and esoteric and like I wanted them to look this way.
Yes. Fig Buns. It's official.
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| Jam. Jam jam jam jam jam. JAM. |
You will notice above that the recipe calls for "Fig Butter." The cookbook helpfully includes a recipe for Fig Butter that I am sure is delicious. However. This is not what I used. I used Fig Jam. Why? Because I'm a hillbilly Beetle. Because Fig Butter involves cooking figs, port, and wine, for HOURS and I got palpitations just looking at it. Because there was no doubt in my mind that jam would do the trick perfectly. Because I have been burned so many times by recipes that say "1 portion ______" and then have a hyperlink or a page number and you flick over to that and what you thought was a simple thing turns into a week-long ordeal from hell involving a cheese cloths and bouquet garnis and food processors and immersion blenders and chilling for 300 hours in a specially prepared ice bath, and it's not like I'm AGAINST those things in principle, it's just when you sneak them in to a recipe it feels . . . mean. And vaguely passive aggressive. Long story short, dear reader, FIG JAM FTW.
Instead of rolling out ALL of the dough into a rectangle that is, specifically "16 inches long" I divided it in half in the mixing bowl and rolled it out two logs from the beginning. I mean, it's going to be cut in half anyway, it seems like a logical, hassle saving move. At least in my head.
The spreading of the jam was very calming. Spreading jam is good for OCD people. It gives us an excuse to make everything smooth and evenly distributed. To be honest I probably took a little more time than was necessary doing it, but whatever. Judgement free zone, you guys. When you roll them up into logs, fair warning, transferring the log of dough and jam to a baking sheet is mildly disgusting. Buckwheat is dark in colour, so the dough looks sort of grey, and the log is all squishy, and with fig jam oozing out the ends . . . I don't mean to put anyone off making these because they are delightful, but it really did feel for a few seconds like I was holding a sea slug, or something from Alien. But then I ate the rest of the fig jam and hey, presto.
This is exactly the same concept as Cinnamon Buns. You spread it all over and then roll it up. And it doesn't matter what you do, it WILL squeeze out the sides, and the end ones WILL be misshapen and weird looking and be more dough than filling. I have seriously tried for YEARS and nothing I have ever done has made a difference. I think it's one of those "ever fixed marks" of life, like the fact that you WILL get a spot the night before anything important that involves use of your face, you WILL forget at least one important thing on your shopping list every time you go to the grocery store, and your wireless access key WILL NOT work even though you SPECIFICALLY wrote it down in your special "username and password" book.
Moving on.
Do NOT think you can cut corners and not chill the dough. Sometimes that works. This is not one of those times. If the dough hadn't been cold, I would have absolutely destroyed it trying to cut through.
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| "Scones" post slicing. |
I have three recipe quibbles. Or rather, clarifications.
1. When she says "the dough will be sticky" this is BEYOND UNDERSTATEMENT. The dough is not "sticky." The dough is "the glue that NASA uses to hold the space station together." Be prepared to add a lot of flour to the board, your hands hands, and the dough just to get it off the spatula in the first place. Sticky. Hah.
2. The recipe indicates that you should preheat the oven to 350 when you put the logs in the fridge to chill for half an hour. OH REALLY? Unless you are employing a small boy with a pair of hand-bellows, you do not need this much time. I turned it on when I took the logs out of the fridge to slice. It was fine.
3. The indicated cooking time, once your oven has reached magical cooking time, is "38 - 42 minutes." Again. OH REALLY? Can you just say "about 40 minutes" and trust that the people who have the initiative to make something called "Fig Buckwheat Scones" also have the initiative to either take the scones out or leave them in depending on perceived done-ness? 2 minutes give or take is kind of, ahem, a given.
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| After "38 - 42 minutes" in an oven that had FINALLY REACHED OH GOD FINALLY 350 degrees. |
All that being said, the house smelled FANTASTIC in about 10 minutes. And still does this morning. Mum, in a massive gesture, chose to sample one for dessert rather than have a quinoa cookie. In order, she said, to make sure that they were edible before I sent them to my Lovely Librarians.
See you guys? She's just looking out for you.
Of course after I was all snotty about the ridiculous cooking time instruction, I probably could have taken them out a bit earlier than I did. However, this is what toaster ovens and microwaves were invented for. And have you even heard anyone complain about the concept of a WARM fig newton? Exactly. Warm fig newtons (excuse me, Fig Buns) were breakfast this morning as a matter of fact.
Breakfast of CHAMPIONS.
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