As long as I cook and bake often enough, it's inevitable to occasionally produce dishes that are less than stellar. I've enjoyed a pretty good streak but it all came to a halt when I neglected an important rule of baking: don't improvise on a recipe until I try it once as written. With all the praise on Good To The Grain, I've been curious about this cookbook and baking with whole grain flours. That Figgy Buckwheat Scone recipe posted on 101 cookbooks sure looks amazing! I decided to give it a try.
Despite the scone being a simple short dough recipe, it was already late when I started baking. It would certainly be great to make the red wine and port poached fig butter for the filling but I was short on ingredient and on time. I decided to replace the filling with a compound butter made with orange rhubarb marmalade, keeping the ratio of compote to butter (3:1) as the original recipe. My jar of marmalade looked a bit thin and I had my doubts but I went ahead with it anyway. The bright tart flavour of orange and rhubarb was so enticing I just couldn't help myself.
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I took great care in shaping the wet sticky dough and was chuffed how well I managed. Unfortunately, the second I took the scones out of the oven, my ego deflated like a leaky balloon. Instead of little round spiral rolls, I had a tray of flat bumpy cookie! The only two survivors that remotely resembled Heidi's photo were the two end pieces (as seen in the first photo). It's time to analysis.
The fact that the two end pieces stood tall is proof that the dough itself works just fine. Most likely, they survived because there was less filing compared to other pieces. That means the extra moisture in the filling is the culprit. I image that the poached figs compote is much sweeter too and it would caramelize quickly in the oven. Instead of caramelizing and firming up during baking, my rhubarb butter simply broke down the dough instead.
I picked the ugliest one of the bunch and took a bite. Then another. Until I was left with just a few crumbs on my finger tips. This thing tastes great! The nuttiness of buckwheat and the tartness of rhubarb all packed into a tender crumbly scone. I regret not following the original recipe as I think about what this scone could have been (like, pretty). I will definitely attempt this recipe again exactly as written and I'm confident it will be picture perfect next time.
