(Not So Great) Honey Lemon Oat Scones

I've been on a quest for the "perfect scone" for quite some time, and I don't consider "perfect" the way one might think. That is, I'm not looking for a texture or taste that is heavenly. I'm looking for a scone which is pretty good without requiring tons of fat to make it that way. After all, you can make anything good with enough butter (or bacon). It's no great feat to make a fabulous scone if you ply the dough with fat in the form of cream or butter.

I've probably tried a dozen or more low-fat recipes or recipes which use less fat than most. So far, no good. I found this recipe through a link on Foodgawker (I think) and it had a lot of appealing elements. For one, it doesn't use too much butter. For another, it uses oatmeal and it uses no refined sugar. The only question was whether or not it was going to come together as a decent scone.

I mainly kept the recipe as is. The only difference is that I didn't brush the tops with butter and sprinkle them with sanding sugar. This was mainly because I didn't have a brush or the right kind of sugar. I also split the dough in half and cooked half of it immediately, and put the rest in the refrigerator to bake the next morning. I wanted to see if leaving it to rest overnight would have an effect on the texture and how well it rose. Mainly, I wanted to see if the oatmeal would be altered by leaving it to absorb more moisture.

The ingredients and recipe are:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter

• lemon zest from one lemon (the original said 2 tsp.)
• 1 medium eggs (the original used a large, I didn't have one)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup whole milk with 1/2 tbsp. vinegar in it (the original had buttermilk)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt (not in the original)

Mix the dry ingredients together then grate the butter with a cheese grater so that it forms long strings. With a wooden spoon, break up the butter strings and mix evenly into the dry ingredients. Mix all of the wet ingredients and lemon zest together well. Add them to the flour and butter and moisten everything. Try not to knead it, though it may be necessary to do so a little to get everything wet. The dough will be very sticky. Pat the dough into whatever shape you prefer then cut into shapes. I followed the same format as the original recipe and made a circle and cut it into wedges. I put the dough on a plastic cutting board to do this so I could avoid using extra flour. Bake for 10-15 min. (mine went 10) at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220 degrees C.).


The flavor and smell of the scones was quite good. The main problem was the texture. I don't think the problem was that there was too little butter so much as far too many oats. I think that a half cup of oats might work far better. I also think that in making my faux buttermilk that I should have used lemon juice instead so that I could infuse these with more lemon flavor. I could smell the lemon a bit with these, but not taste it at all.

The main difference between the ones that I made immediately and the ones that I made overnight was that the overnight ones seemed coarse and tough and the ones I made right away were oddly chewy. Both of them rose just fine so the baking powder didn't lose its punch overnight. I also wonder if the honey may be contributing to the overall texture problem. I'd like to try these again, but next time with 1/2 of the oats (possibly toasted - see the next paragraph), more lemon, and possibly with about 1/2 of the honey and perhaps a bit of sugar. I don't think the oats affect the moisture balance much so I'm not likely to do anything in an altered recipe to change the amount of flour.

I'm also wondering if toasting the oats a bit in a pan might help. My guess is that 10-15 minutes at a high temperature isn't enough to really cook the oats at all. They're essentially raw when you're eating them in the scone which is why they're chewy and tough. If they're precooked a bit, their texture might be better.

When I try a different version, I'll post it here.

Update: I found that the oatmeal texture mellowed a bit after freezing the scones (and allowing them to rest in the kitchen for about a day). As is often the case with baked goods with a lot of whole grain in them, they were better the next day, though I still will make a modified recipe in the future.

by Shari (Orchid64)