Bryce Coutlon is a retired Air Force veteran that wanted a change of scenery and discovered his passion for charcuterie at a cooking school in a remote part of Ireland while perfecting his scone recipe. Can't make that up.
Ballymaloe Irish Scones
makes 18
2 pounds cream flour
6 ounces butter
3 eggs
2 ounces caster sugar
pinch of salt
3 heaped teaspoons baking powder
15 ounces milk
egg wash
granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
Sieve all dry ingredients to remove any lumps and mix well. Cut unsalted butter into ½-inch cubes, combine with flour in a mixing bowl. By hand, mix butter and flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Some recipes call for mixing until “fine breadcrumbs,” but the larger (coarse breadcrumb) pieces of butter leave larger air pockets as they melt during baking, thus a lighter and less-dense scone.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk eggs for 1 minute to break up the whites. Add most of the milk, holding back about 1 ounce. Depending on humidity and time of year, sometimes more or less liquid is needed, or a pinch more flour, so you’ll have to adjust as you see fit when making the dough. Don’t worry, you have to really work at it to mess-up this recipe. Trust what feels and looks right.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently mix until it comes together into a soft dough. Turn out the dough onto a cutting board dusted with flour. With a light hand, shape into around 1-inch thick round. Using a 2-inch round cookie cutter, press out scones. You will have extra irregular pieces of dough, but bring those pieces together and cut more scones. These last few scones will be a bit more dense than the first from even this small reworking of the dough. Egg wash the tops of the scones, dip the tops into sugar and place about 2-inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until there’s a nice dark golden color.
“How do you make it better? It’s the technique. It’s the little nuances. If you are going to do something, it should matter.”
