Why Do My Scones Spread Instead Of Rising

July 19, 2022

wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards.If it's too dry, your scones won't rise properly, so tweak the ingredient proportions as needed. .

How to Make Scones

We’re going to tell you which steps are crucial (don’t skip the rubbing in of the butter) and which can be flexed!These scones are round, almost cylinder like shaped, often with a curved on the outside.They don’t have to be round anymore and come in various shapes, sizes and even flavors.Compare a ‘typical’ British scones to an American one and you’ll likely notice a difference in size, sweetness and absence (or presence) of fillings.But, biscuits tend to be savoury, even salty, whereas most scones are more neutral, or slightly sweet.Classic British scones in the UK, eaten with clotted cream & jam.You can tear a chunk from a baguette, but it won’t break or fall apart easily.The reason these breads behave this way is because of the formation of a gluten network.These breads are kneaded extensively, or left to rest for long periods of time.When making scones on the other hand, you do NOT want this gluten network to form.The absence of a gluten network helps keep a scone flaky.Another important factor contributing to the flakiness is the presence of pockets of fat.Fat prevents proteins, but also starches in the flour from coming together and forming a structure.In the oven, these leavening agents will react and form carbon dioxide, a gas.To create a nice, light texture, it’s also important to add the right amount of liquid.You can use baking soda if you’ve added an acidic ingredient to the dough (e.g. buttermilk, vinegar, lemon juice).Savory scones, these do start to show overlaps with the American biscuit!Step one of most scones recipes tends to be to: rub in the butter (or other type of solid fat) into the flour.Most commonly you’ll find recipes using butter, margarine, lard, or shortening.They can all make a good scone, with slight differences in texture.The liquid oil won’t be able to make those larger pockets of fat.As we’ll learn in the next step, overmixing only becomes a problem once water joins the party.As such, you can rub in the fat by hand, but you might just as well use a food processor, or a stand mixer for instance.For a gluten network to form, you need water, time and kneading.Water ensures the protein molecules can move freely, to find each other and interact.When kneading a dough, you’re actively helping the gluten network to form.It’s why any scone recipe will caution you against extensive kneading or mixing once you’ve added the water.As soon as the dough starts to come together, stop the mixer and continue by hand.Keep in mind though that some fillings help improve the flakiness of a scone, whereas other can do the exact opposite!Generally speaking, fat-based fillings will be easy to incorporate without ruining the texture.Water based, very liquid fillings on the other hand, should be handled with care.Therefore, cheese will serve a similar function as the butter in your scone, it will help keep it crumbly and light.The more you knead and break it, the more moisture will be released and the more the scone will be affected.A good fruit we found is cranberries, they barely release any moisture when they’re uncooked!If you do want to add more moist fruit, reduce the amount of milk you’re adding.If there are still large clumps of flour or pockets with a lot of water, it won’t hold together in those areas.If you double the amount of butter in our recipe, they’ll turn out more like cookies (we tested it for you).Keep in mind that after rubbing in the fat into the flour, it should give a crumbly texture.Using milk instead of water can give a slightly browner scone and a little (but not much) extra flavor.If your scones barely rise in the oven, reconsider the amount of water you’ve added.If you’re using baking soda, take care that you’ve added at least one sour ingredient (e.g. buttermilk).By now, it’s hopefully clear that you do have a lot of creative freedoms when making scones.This ensures an even distribution of the fat and the creation of those buttery pockets.Top left : substitutes milk for water, a little bland in color, but identical taste-wise.Bottom two : contain twice the amount of butter, turned out more like cookies than scones! .

My Foolproof Scone Recipe

As an amazon associate, we earn commission at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase.As an amazon associate, we earn commission at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase.After lots of testing (and tasting), I have found the ideal ratio and method for a perfect foolproof scone recipe.These traditional English scones are made from plain flour, no eggs and only take 12 minutes to bake.On my scone journey, I've tested several recipes ranging from small food blogs to famous chefs including Paul Hollywood and Jamie Oliver with various results.Citric acid is not a very common ingredient and is easy to over-use it; once I removed bicarbonate of soda from the recipe it wasn't needed.The answer is yes; you can use plain flour for making scones as long as you add a sufficient amount of raising agent.Note: Strong flour can make the scones slightly chewier (possibly because it contains more gluten - something I learnt from testing Paul Hollywood’s recipe).In comparison, scones without eggs were more delicate and felt softer with even upward rise; every bite melted in the mouth.Baking powder is a pre-mix of a few components (diphosphates/acidic compound, sodium carbonates and maize starch).The bicarbonate of soda is a single agent and needs to be used in combination with an acidic ingredient and liquid.Once the bicarbonate of soda, acid and liquid are combined, the reaction immediately produces carbon dioxide that helps the dough to rise.Bicarbonate of soda on its own has a strong soapy, almost metallic flavour that needs to be “deactivated” by a sufficient amount of acidic sources - like buttermilk, lemon juice, apple sauce, cream of tartar, citric acid or even brown sugar.Note: I was using both leaving agents in my original recipe, to achieve a taller rise.The baking powder gave the scones the main boost while the bicarbonate of soda and citric acid were there for a small extra push.Small flakes of cold butter in the dough will help to make softer, more crumbly scones that will rise better.use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it makes fine breadcrumb consistency.gently incorporate milk into the dry ingredients with your hand until all the flour is mixed in.I tried to chill the dough in the fridge before cutting the scones out (following Jamie Oliver's recipe).However, I find it easier to cut out scones first, give them an egg wash and let them rest in the fridge already ready on a baking tray.Tip: Don't pat the dough thinner than 2.5 - 3 centimetres if you wish to make nice tall scones.You can use any round object with thin walls (easier for cutting) like a can or small plastic container.Small, empty and clean tin with a diameter of around 5 cm is a good replacement for a pastry cutter.Simply make American-style scones by shaping the dough into a round disk and cutting it into wedges.use a sufficient amount of raising agent (for each 100g of plain flour use 1 levelled teaspoon of baking powder).Combine all dry ingredients: Sift the flour and mix it with the baking powder, sugar and salt.Pour a little over half of the milk into the flour and with your hands gently combine the wet and dry ingredients.Keep adding the rest of the milk in small steps preventing the dough from becoming too wet and sticky.Tip: The dough has the right consistency when it sticks to my fingers but leaves the edges of the bowl clean.Tip: If you have time and space, rest the tray with cutout scones in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking.For sweet scones - you can try to add different dry fruit, like a handful of raisins into the dough.If you decide to pre-soak the raisins make sure you squeeze the liquid out before mixing the fruit into the dough and consider adding less milk.For savoury scones - reduce the sugar and mix in 150 grams of grated cheddar cheese, you can also experiment with adding bacon, caramelised onion or different fresh herbs.Traditional Afternoon tea is a light meal served between lunch and dinner.If your preference is jam first topped with a spoon of clotted cream you like the Cornish method.If you don't eat all of the scones the same day, your best solution is to freeze them in an airtight ziplock bag while they are still fresh. .

How To Make Scone Bread Recipe? – Fleischmann's Simply

Known also as girdle scones, this hearty, round bread was originally made from leavened barley flour or oatmeal, rolled in round shape, and sliced and baked until quarters are placed onto baking mats.Large Egg- The egg works in combination with the other ingredients to bind them together, but provides a distinct flavor as well.In order for flaky layers within the scones to form, salted butter must be extracted from the oven.Your batch should rise evenly and remain unfettered when you cut them during the preparation phase.Once you have your cutter, just dip it in a thin slice of flour and press it down on the dough to release it.The melted butter will completely dissolve all of the pockets, which will make the biscuits less dough-like than scones.A further note is to stop enthusiastically kneading the dough in baking bread.Final ingredient in a scones recipe is an agent known as baking powder.This process causes the oxygen to react with the leavening agents, resulting in carbon dioxide. .

baking

Leaning scones aren't necessarily indicative of improper technique, but flat ones are.Keeping your ingredients cold is important when creating scones in every recipe I've read or tried. .

Making Scones: Tips and Troubleshooting Problems

Like all baked goods, a lot can go wrong at each step, throwing your recipe into a tailspin.If you're adding fruit, chocolate or other sweet ingredients to a basic scone recipe, use less sugar.If you're making scones with ingredients like canned pumpkin or mashed banana, use less buttermilk than you would normally use.Just press it into the mixture, cutting the butter as you go and wiping the cutter clean of dough with your hand as needed.Add just enough buttermilk or milk (preferably low-fat) to make the dough stick together.If you're using frozen fruit, and add it at the last minute (just before you cut the scones) to prevent its juices from melting before it gets into the heat of the oven.Once your dough is crumbly, you can freeze it in a sealed plastic bag until you're almost ready to bake it.For pink scones (for events like Valentine's Day or a birthday party), puree raspberries and use them as a portion of your liquid ingredients.Move a chunk of dough from the mixing bowl to a floured cutting board.If the dough is too crumbly when you place it on the cutting board, add slightly more buttermilk.If the dough is too sticky when you put it on the cutting board, add more flour.Optional: If you have remaining flour dregs, you can add a very small amount of buttermilk to them and use them as additional dough. .

What went wrong

The proportions of bicarbonate of soda and acid (either sour milk or cream of tartar) may be incorrect or the flour and raising agents may have been insufficiently sieved.My scones have a dense, heavy texture and poor volume.You also need to make sure that you need the dough for long enough as this helps to evenly distribute the raising agents.You may have measured out the ingredients incorrectly or the water wasn’t boiling when you added the flour.The water may have boiled for too long and evaporated or you may have measured out the ingredients incorrectly. .

Why Did My Scones Spread Instead Of Rising : Scones

We’ll dig into which of those steps are actually important (and which aren’t) to give you that light, flaky scone instead of a brick.Scones break apart easily and it makes for quite a unique eating experience.It should fall apart easily when you pull a part off, but it shouldn’t crumble apart in your hands.You might be surprised to learn, that it isn’t that different from the American biscuit, Both are crumbly, light and moist and use very similar preparation techniques.Classic British scones in the UK, eaten with clotted cream & jam.These crucial steps all relate to creating that characteristic crumbly scone.A crumbly scone breaks apart very easily into smaller bite size chunks.You have to tear a part off a baguette, taking a lot more effort than breaking of a piece of scone.The main reason for these differences is the existence or absence of a gluten network.A bread dough is kneaded extensively to organize and align the gluten that are naturally present in wheat flour.They align and form this strong network if there’s enough water and if the dough is kneaded extensively.There is another way to help prevent gluten formation, it’s to put barriers in place for the proteins to interact.Rubbing in the butter consistently throughout the flour is essential for making that crumbly scone.At this point you can use an electric mixer without any risk of over mixing (just be careful to not melt the butter).Upon placing the scone dough into the oven these pockets of butter will start to melt.Where the butter used to sit is now an opening, forming a perfect ‘break’ area for when you’re pulling apart a piece of your scone.Remember that baking soda only works well if there’s some other form of acid in the recipe.Aside from providing sweetness, the sugar also helps to brown the scone more quickly in the oven.If there are still large clumps of flour or pockets with a lot of water, it won’t hold together in those areas.Apart from that we tested: Mixing everything in in one go; overall scone looked good, top right, but it tasted a little dry and bland.Substituting water for milk; turned out just fine, especially if you will be eating your scone will flavourful toppings.Adding two times the amount of butter, bottom two, these were more cookies than scones!If your scones barely rise in the oven, reconsider the amount of water you’ve added.If you’re using baking soda, take care that you’ve added at least one sour ingredient (e.g. buttermilk).Some fillings even help to create that light and crumbly texture, whereas with others you have to be a bit more careful that they don’t undo all your previous hard work.Therefore, cheese will serve a similar function as the butter in your scone, it will help keep it crumbly and light.To most scone recipes you can add grated cheese without it negatively impacting the texture.A good fruit we found is cranberries, they barely release any moisture when they’re uncooked!They will puff up slightly differently as you can see in the photos on this post, but still taste great.wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards.If it's too dry, your scones won't rise properly, so tweak the ingredient proportions as needed.As an amazon associate, we earn commission at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase.As an amazon associate, we earn commission at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase.After lots of testing (and tasting), I have found the ideal ratio and method for high risen, perfect Cream tea scones.For quite some time, I’ve been trying to find a recipe for foolproof, exquisite looking, high risen “coffee shop style” scones.To help me better understand the techniques and how ingredients can affect the outcome, we set a challenge between Jamie Oliver and Paul Hollywood scone recipes and dedicated a whole blog post to it.I was aiming for uniform well-risen scones with a beautiful golden colour, crumbly texture and delicate buttery taste with a little hint of sweetness.The answer is yes; you can use plain flour for making scones as long as you add a sufficient amount of raising agent to it.I believe more people recently asked the same question when they couldn’t get hold of self-raising flour during the lockdown, as it happened to us.Bakers have to mix plain flour and raising agent every time they want to make a cake.From my experience, the best choice is self-raising or plain flour as these give you perfect light scones that melt in the mouth.Baking powder is a pre-mix of a few components (diphosphates/acidic compound, sodium carbonates and maize starch).On the other hand, bicarbonate of soda is a single agent and needs to be used in combination with an acidic ingredient and liquid.Once the bicarbonate of soda, acid and liquid are combined, the reaction immediately produces carbon dioxide that helps the dough to rise.If the bicarbonate of soda is the only leavener in your recipe, you need to bake immediately to achieve the best result.Bicarbonate of soda on its own has a strong soapy, almost metallic flavour that needs to be “deactivated” by a sufficient amount of acidic source - like buttermilk, lemon juice, apple sauce, cream of tartar, citric acid or even brown sugar.It is probably a fancy ingredient that people usually don’t have in the pantry (unless you are an enthusiast jam maker).Adding light muscovado sugar to the ingredients is our personal touch, as we like enhancing the scone flavour with a subtle hint of a toffee-like molasses taste.Small flakes of cold butter in the dough will help to make softer, more crumbly scones that will rise better.After that, I used my hands only to incorporate the last dry bits of flour into the dough in not more than 8 - 10 press and turns.I have experimented with a higher ratio of liquid but with wetter dough, my scones had a tendency to spread more sideways rather than rise up.I chill the dough in the fridge before cutting out the scones (it’s a trick Jamie Oliver recommended in his recipe).I learnt that weighing the ingredients precisely and strictly following the main steps do the trick and provides excellent results.Sift the flour and raisng agents; mix in greated butter; stir in sugar and salt.With a fork mix in the eggs; add the milk in a few steps; incorporate the last dry flour into the dough using your hands.The simple "every-day" recipe (on the right) makes the scones lighter in colour (no muscovado sugar) and they don’t have the same rise.The ratios of the ingredients are the same for both recipes but the "every-day" version doesn’t contain bicarbonate of soda, citric acid and light muscovado sugar.You can make American style scones; pat the dough into a circular shape and cut it into wedges.If you are fixed on making round English scones and you don’t own a cutter use an empty tin.If you don't eat the scones the same day, your best solution is to freeze them in an airtight ziplock bag while they are still fresh.Like all baked goods, a lot can go wrong at each step, throwing your recipe into a tailspin.Amy Lawrence, an accomplished afternoon tea cookbook author and the founder of An Afternoon to Remember shares her tips on how to make scones that are flavorful, moist and beautiful.If you're adding fruit, chocolate or other sweet ingredients to a basic scone recipe, use less sugar.If you're making scones with ingredients like canned pumpkin or mashed banana, use less buttermilk than you would normally use.Just press it into the mixture, cutting the butter as you go and wiping the cutter clean of dough with your hand as needed.Add just enough buttermilk or milk (preferably low-fat) to make the dough stick together.If you're using frozen fruit, and add it at the last minute (just before you cut the scones) to prevent its juices from melting before it gets into the heat of the oven.Once your dough is crumbly, you can freeze it in a sealed plastic bag until you're almost ready to bake it.This is a good way to prepare scones for busy holidays and large events.For pink scones (for events like Valentine's Day or a birthday party), puree raspberries and use them as a portion of your liquid ingredients.Move a chunk of dough from the mixing bowl to a floured cutting board.If the dough is too crumbly when you place it on the cutting board, add slightly more buttermilk.If the dough is too sticky when you put it on the cutting board, add more flour.Optional: If you have remaining flour dregs, you can add a very small amount of buttermilk to them and use them as additional dough.First, make sure you’re using fresh baking powder, one that has been opened less than 6 months ago.Adding more flour also prevents the dough from rising as high, so only dust lightly..Placing a dough in a cool oven that then slowly heats up actually affects the rising agent.Also having an oven that is too hot or too cold will affect the baking of your scones immensely.Tips for Shaping Scones If the dough is too crumbly when you place it on the cutting board, add slightly more buttermilk.Proper butter – not margarine, unrefined sugar and a good quality cake flour.Don’t mess with it too much!But, most of all, I love a great golden billow of a savoury scone, topped with a decorous straw hat of toasted cheese.Indeed, my interest in historic houses can be almost solely attributed to the vast cheese scones on sale at every National Trust cafe.In my not inconsiderable experience, however, you have to time your visit carefully to get them at their freshly baked best – whereas at home, you’re always perfectly placed to pounce, making this a very dangerous recipe indeed.Though this column is firmly against discrimination of any kind, there’s no denying that the success of a scone can be largely determined with a ruler – they stand, or indeed fall, on their height, which means that most recipes I try use more than one raising agent, with only Delia Smith and the kitchens of Gwynedd’s Penrhyn castle relying solely on self-raising flour.However, Rox, daughter of Jo Holland, who has published her recipe on her own blog Notes from the Menu, uses extra baking powder, and baker Justin Gellatly makes his own from bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar in his book Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding.Butter is the fat of choice in all the cheese scone recipes I try, but its consistency varies, with Gellatly using it chilled, while Penrhyn Castle prefers it softened, and Bertie, the chef at the wonderfully named Scorch-O-Rama cafe in Scorching Bay, Wellington, New Zealand – who makes what one customer describes as “the best scones I’ve ever tasted” – melting it before use.Keeping the fat cool seems wise: it means it melts more slowly, creating little pockets in the dough as it rises, and giving the finished scone a flakier texture.Smith uses a fairly parsimonious amount, which strikes us as a crying shame in a teatime treat, though she is the only cook to add an egg instead.Personally, I’d prefer more butter, which makes the crumb softer and richer, while I suspect the protein in the egg might contribute to testers finding Smith’s scones a wee bit tough (though this could also be the fact that they end up slightly overbaked, of which more later).Smith and Gellatly both use buttermilk, the acid in which should help to give their scones a tender texture, but my testing panel can’t tell the difference, while the tangy flavour is lost under the cheese.If I’m buying something specially, rather than using up a lot of odds and ends from the fridge, I like a mature red leicester, as much for its bright orange colour as its lovely flavour.Though cheese is pretty good on its own, as any aficionado of Welsh rarebit will testify, it’s even better with mustard, particularly the fiery English variety favoured by Rox, Smith and Gellatly.The last adds further heat in the form of smoked, and hot, paprika while Bertie and Smith prefer cayenne pepper, but, nice as these all are with cheese, the panel come down in favour of mustard, which they think brings out its flavour better, rather than competing with it.The shaping process is, according to many, similarly vital, with Smith, Rox and Penrhyn castle all cautioning bakers “to be very careful not to roll the dough out too thinly … the secret of well-risen scones is to start off with a thickness no less than an inch.” This seems reasonable advice, unless you’re after an English muffin.Warm cheese scones and cold butter – better even than the plain sort with clotted cream and jam, or do you have an even better recipe up your sleeve? .