Goat's whey scones
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 1:24PM 
These are based on the recipe for Mrs McNab's Scones by F. Marian McNeill in The Scots Kitchen. I've made few changes other than substituting the buttermilk for goat's whey. I had several pints of the stuff after making Greek-style goat's yoghurt and couldn't think of anything else to do with it! Tasted on its own, the whey has a lemony tang, giving the scones a delicate, refreshingly clean flavour. Golden brown, craggy and crunchy on the outside, the insides are a startling, snowy white and utterly soft and tender. They put me in mind of little fluffy clouds that have caught a suntan whilst frolicking across the skies. (Remember that song? Love it!)
A cautionary word on scone making: their lightness is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent manipulating the dough; that is, a) the amount of time spent working the liquid ingredients into the dry ones in order to create it - use rapid, light, deft movements to keep stirring to a minimum - and b) the amount of time you spend shaping it into scones. Keep both to an absolute minimum and you can expect little towers of amazing lightness.
A very wet dough and very hot oven together produce more steam, which in turn creates a lighter scone. Unless you're used to them, wet doughs can be a bit scary - the reflex reaction is to add more flour. Don't. You're not going to be handling the dough enough for the wetness to matter, and reducing it will reduce the lightness.
Ingredients
1lb/450g plain flour
2 level teaspoons cream of tartar
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Half teaspoon salt
2oz/56g cold butter, unsalted
1 egg, beaten
Approximately half a pint of chilled goat's whey
Method
Preheat the oven to 220C. Prepare a large baking tray by giving it a light grease of butter - a quick swipe with the butter wrapper is all that’s needed - and a very liberal sprinkle of flour.
Next, sift the flour, raising agents and salt into a medium-large mixing bowl, making sure to give them a good airing. Chop the butter into small cubes. Add the cubes to the dry ingredients, stirring with a knife to coat them in flour. Rinse your wrists under cold water to cool the temperature of your hands. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles rough breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg bit by bit, combining after each addition by cutting across the bowl once or twice with a blunt knife. Repeat with the goat's whey, taking care to stir minimally with each addition.
As you start adding the whey, a few pebbles will form amongst the crumbs. Gradually, the pebbles will grow into boulders, and then the boulders will come together into one atop a small scatter of crumbs. Once you reach this stage, add just a small amount of whey at a time, a teaspoon or so. Overdoing the liquid will make the dough slippery wet on the outside and therefore more difficult to shape and cut. Conversely, don’t succumb to the temptation to dive in with your hands and manhandle the last few recalcitrant crumbs into becoming one with the dough. Unless you like eating stones that is. Instead, add just a dribble of whey at a time until they join of their own accord.
Flour your work surface. Turn out the lump of dough. It will look very rough hewn, not at all smooth, neat or tidy. Don’t worry, that’s how it should be. Sprinkle the top with a generous dusting of flour. Then form a loose fist with your hand and gently pat the dough into a rough square. Don’t be fussy about getting a neat shape, a few pats will do it. Over-press and they won’t rise properly!
Using a long sharp knife, cut the dough into half across the horizontal, then repeat with each half to give 4 horizontal strips. Do the same across the vertical to give 16 scones of roughly the same size – they won’t be exactly the same unless you spent too much time shaping the dough, in which case they’ll be heavy. Use a thin palette knife to lift each scone from the work surface and transfer to the tray, being careful not to squidge the tops down with your fingers. Place well apart to give them room to expand.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until they’re golden on the outside and the underneath sounds hollow when tapped with the back of your finger. Remove from the baking tray and place on a wire rack until cool enough to gobble.
Eat as soon as possible as they don’t keep well at all. Just two hours out of the oven and they’ll be discernibly less soft and billowy. (I don't really know why, but suspect that because most of their moisture content is water rather than fat, it simply escapes into the atmosphere. See, they are like little humidifying clouds after all!) Not that you’re likely to have a problem persuading yourself, or anyone else, to eat them. They’re so good they’ll vanish almost instantly.
Enjoy them just as they are, soaked in butter, with cheese, dunked into a bowl of soup, or alongside a plateful of stew to mop up every last droplet of gravy. Or have them sweet with jam, jelly or fruit curd. I spread them with some of the freshly made goat's curd – actually a lot like cream cheese - and some of my Mum’s homemade, slightly tarty, redcurrant and raspberry jelly. Delicious. The cheese and fruit combo is now making me think that blue cheese and quince jam would be great together… perhaps with a teeny tiny sprinkling of chives … Right, must stop there, my mouth is watering uncontrollably and I don’t want to dribble on the keyboard of my precious new Mac.
Take a moment to admire your smiling, no doubt floury-faced and greasy or jammy-fingered companions. You will have made them very happy and will almost certainly receive some loving in return!
Reader Comments (4)
OK Sonnda, now I really want my goat. Well, at least I can have some scones, though not sure they'll end up as billowy, pillowy as yours. The kids at my school make scones sometimes, oh my god. Hockey pucks. The teachers are sensitive to criticism, so I refrain. Check out Dianne Jacob's recent post on recipe writing. Too depressing. Your scone recipe is a work of art. Very inspiring. Are you having lots of grey days in Scotland? We are here in Japan. I guess I shouldn't be wearing my California clothes. My back feels cold, hence the Japanese housecoat. Uh oh better be off to the school to cook lunch. Scones are now high on my list. Thanks.
Hi Sonnda,
This is a very sensuous, pleasurable post. It's also jammed with good info. While reading it I realized the last time I made scones I was freaked out by how wet they were. You told me not to worry about it. Good.
Thank you both for the positive feedback and lovely compliments. Nancy, your hockey puck comparison made me laugh out loud. Not really on the baking textural spectrum are they?! Funny you should mention the rain. I was in Portugal at the time and it rained constantly, EVERY SINGLE day, whilst Scotland was apparently all blue skies and sunshine. Grrr! Portugal was great nonetheless, and the food really intriguing. Full of pigs ears, trotters, jowls and the like. Rich and delicious. Look forward to blogging about it eventually - a new job has totally disrupted my work/blog/life balance, but I WILL get there.
LOVE this. Must try soon, in a gluten free version!
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