Baking Interlude: Apple Cinnamon Scones, Because Food Is Love. Also a RTW Alteration Success, and Pineapple Progress!

Fresh Apple Cinnamon Scones, Second Batch

Have you ever made a recipe with fantastic results, but then the next time you tried to make it was a disaster?  That's what happened to me over the weekend with this King Arthur Flour Baker's Catalog recipe for Apple Cinnamon Scones.  I've made these scones in the past and they were stellar, but when I tried to make them again this Saturday the batter was a goopy mess, they spread like muffin tops, and the bottoms burnt.  Disaster!  So after my family and I begrudgingly ate up all of the burned scones (because even bad homemade baked goods are better than store-bought), I put on my apron and my thinking cap to figure out what might have gone wrong.

The number one drawback to this recipe is that it requires some kind of cinnamon chips, and I cannot find them locally.  Sometimes stores will have the Hershey's cinnamon chips around the holidays, and those will work in a pinch but they are my last resort since they are full of waxy non-food ingredients -- they don't actually contain any cinnamon, so they don't give that amazing blast of cinnamon.  I like to use the King Arthur Flour Cinnamon Sweet Bits for this recipe, so I have to plan ahead and order them online.  

KAF Cinnamon Sweet Bits Ingredients: Sugar, Vegetable Oil, CINNAMON, and Sunflower Lecithin

So, after driving around to every grocery store in a 20-mile radius, even Target and Walmart, finally accepting defeat, ordering online, and waiting for my cinnamon chips to arrive in the mail, it was especially frustrating to have a Baking Fail!  

Here's what went wrong, and what I changed in order to achieve Scone Nirvana with the second batch:

1. The recipes on the KAF Baker's Catalog website always give you the option to measure ingredients either by weight or by volume.  I usually prefer to measure my flour by weight, since you can get drastically different amounts of flour in the same measuring cup depending on whether you just dumped a new bag of flour into the canister or whether it's been sitting awhile and has settled.  Since the batter was overly wet and runny with the first failed batch of scones, and I weighed the flour for that batch, I decided to measure by volume with the second batch, using the old-fashioned "dip-and-sweep" method for 2 3/4 cups.  This yielded much better results, so either something was amiss with my kitchen scale or the recipe requires more flour than the 11 1/2 oz. called for in the recipe.  So from now on, that's how I'll measure the flour for this recipe!

2. This recipe calls for chilling the scones in the freezer for 30 minutes prior to baking, to allow the gluten in the flour to relax and to chill the butter.  They tell you to scoop your scones onto your sheet pan and then put it in the freezer, but I have a side-by-side fridge and none of my baking sheets fit on those little 12" x 12" freezer shelves!  I couldn't remember how I handled this last time, so with my failed batch I attempted to chill the scones on the wider refrigerator shelf instead.  In the refrigerator, the dough sank down and spread instead of holding their "scoops of ice cream" shape as they chilled.  So, with the second batch, I scooped my scones into parchment-lined Pyrex pie plates that fit into my freezer instead of scooping them directly onto the baking sheet.

How To Chill Drop Scones In a Side-By-Side Freezer

Success!

I have no idea how I managed the chilling of the scones the first time I made this recipe, when they were amazing.  I might have put them in the fridge for longer, or maybe I made them in winter and just put the baking sheet full of scones out in my screen porch for 30 minutes to chill, but evidently this step is crucial so I'm glad I found a solution that works without having to buy any new gadgets or tiny little baking sheets.

Speaking of gadgets, I used a Zeroll muffin scoop, Blue Size 16 for this recipe.  I like the round, uniform "scoop of ice cream" shape it gives me for drop scones, and when the scones are all the exact same size and shape, they all bake the same rather than having the slightly smaller scones overbake while the larger ones are still raw in the center.  I also think the round scooped scones look cute when they come out of the oven, and we all know that cute scones taste better than ugly misshapen scones.  ;-)  (Zeroll cookie scoops are fantastic for the same reasons, by the way, and the speed and efficiency of using a cookie scoop is a godsend when I'm making dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies).  Back to the scones!

4. With the failed batch, I followed the recipe instructions to the letter and glazed the scones prior to freezing them, even though I vaguely remembered that I had forgotten to glaze the scones prior to chilling them the first time I baked them.  Big mistake!  I think that gooping milk all over the dough that was already too wet to begin with (due to not enough flour) and then putting them in the fridge instead of the freezer exacerbated the problem of the too-wet dough, as the milk soaked into the scones while they sat in the fridge and the wet dough became more like a muffin batter, unable to hold its shape.  With the successful do-over batch, I waited to glaze the scones until just before I popped them into the oven and brushed much less milk onto each scone, just enough so the sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar would adhere.

5. One more thing -- with the failed batch of scones that burned on the bottoms, I baked them on a sheet of parchment paper using a dark rimmed cookie pan.  With the second batch, I used my silver baking sheet (no sides) and a lightly floured Silpat silicone baking mat.

No Burned Bottoms With Silver Baking Sheet and Silpat Baking Mat

Silpat mats are awesome -- NOTHING sticks to them, they don't need any greasing, and you can reuse them thousands of times instead of single-use parchment paper.  They are made from food safe silicone reinforced with fiberglass and they promote even browning in addition to preventing sticky batters from sticking to the cookie sheet.  I really should get a bigger one for this baking sheet. 

And here are the resulting scones from the second batch, just as wonderful as we remembered them from the first time I made this recipe!

Oh Yes, They DO Taste As Good As They Look!

I've amended my recipe so next time I can avoid making the same mistakes.  I don't bake very often, and it's such a bummer to take the time and trouble and end up with disappointment instead of delight!

Does your family have a favorite recipe for scones or muffins that you'd like to share with me?  I'd love to find a great recipe for rhubarb scones, or lemon blueberry...  

I did manage to get a little bit of sewing done over the weekend, too.  I enlisted Headless Helena's help to alter a RTW princess seamed top:

Headless Helena Models Fit-Corrected RTW Anthropologie Top

I bought this top from Anthropologie because I needed something yellow in a hurry that I could wear with jeans for Sunday's contemporary choir dress code.  In this photo from Anthropologie's website, you can see how the top is supposed to be slightly fitted through the shoulders and then flare out gently beneath the bust.  

Anthropologie Seamed + Textured Tank On Skinny + Flat-Chested Model

It's a textured knit fabric with a good amount of stretch, and I bought a size Medium that fit my upper chest and bust nicely without those dreaded horizontal pull lines.  However, like many RTW tops, the fabric BENEATH the bust was protruding on me in a way that reminds me of a maternity top, and that is NOT a good look when you're not pregnant!

Unaltered Size Medium Top On Headless Helena

Initially I thought there was too much fabric in the tummy area, and I planned to take it in from the princess seams on the front of the top.  Once I got the top on my dress form Helena, though, the first thing I did was align the CF, CB, and side seams with the seams on the fabric dress form cover.  That's when I realized that the extra fabric in the tummy area was actually coming from the BACK of the top.  See what happened when I pinned the side seam to make it hang straight down from the armpit:

With Side Seam Straightened, It's Obvious the BACK Is Too Big

Ideally, if I was making this top from scratch, I would have started out with a pattern size Small to fit the upper chest and shoulders and done a FBA (full bust adjustment).  That would have given me an even better fit through the armhole and would have allowed me to lengthen the front of the top.  I would have LOVED to be able to make something from scratch, but I just didn't have time, not without a local source for decent garment fabric.  So tweaking the fit on this one was the best I could do.  

I pinched out equal amounts along the CB seam and the back princess seams, tapering to nothing.

Extra Fullness Pinned Out from CB and Back Princess Seams

I was very conservative about how much I was taking out, mindful of the disaster of the RTW Diner Blouse Alteration Fail that taught me the perils of overfitting!  I tried the top on my own body with the seams pinned, and then I machine basted what I'd pinned in and checked the fit before stitching them with a "real" machine stitch.  Ideally I would have serged those seams to remove the bulk of the excess seam allowances, but I was time-starved due to the baking fiasco that had eaten up most of my Saturday.  I'm pleased with the improved fit.

Still Not Perfect, But Better Than Before

In order to get the top to fit me the way it fits the Anthropologie model, I'd need to remove some fabric from those front princess seams all the way down to the hemline and that means opening up and restitching the hem.  There are limits to how much I want to disassemble and reconstruct something that I bought off the rack.  Anyway, I'm pleased that I was able to tweak this top by myself, without calling my mom for emergency backup (although I was tempted!), and that I got it done in under an hour without overcomplicating things.  Helena's help was crucial (my customized Fabulous Fit dress form) for realizing the side seams were angling forward and pinning the top on the dress form is the only way I could have pinned seams on my back without help and gotten them just right on the first try.  I really need to sew myself some more clothes from scratch instead of wasting so much time and money on RTW that almost sort-of fits...  

These Seam Intersections Make Me Happy!

...Oh, and I've been working on my pineapple log cabin quilt in fits and snatches, too.  The foundation papers of all 36 blocks were removed during a family Harry Potter Film Marathon and I've started pinning and piecing them together.  Since I'm trying to align lots of seams that are all pressed in the same direction rather than nesting, I've been experimenting with different pinning techniques.  

I seem to be having the most success when I pin right through the stitching line at an angle, like this, although I have to be careful that my needle doesn't deflect against the pins because that creates a little jog in the stitching line:

Angled Pinning to Match the Seams

After taking the photo above, I started placing those pins even closer to the stitching lines and making sure that the pin goes through the stitching on both sides before I start sewing the blocks together.  It's slow going with all the pinning, but I've got one whole row of blocks seamed together so far just from Sunday afternoon.

By the way, a HUGE thanks to all of you who reached out with suggestions about piecing batting!  I ordered two King size Dream Wool precut battings and I'm going to experiment to see whether a whip stitch by hand or a machine stitch will work best for joining them.  I don't even have my backing fabric for this quilt yet, but that's okay because I picked up a couple of tops from the charity quilting group at our church and I'm planning to practice pantograph quilting the charity quilts before I attempt to quilt my pineapple quilt.  Stay tuned...

Oh, and speaking of my church -- my 17-year-old son sang his first solo with the adult contemporary choir this Sunday morning and he did a great job.  I'm so proud of him!  If you're interested, check out the recording here.  Lars's solo begins at 54:20 into the worship service, and as an added bonus, you can see me and my yellow Anthropologie top singing with the choir behind him.  I mean, I'M singing in the choir -- tops don't sing...  :-)

Well, friends, now that we're all caught up it's time for me to figure out what I'm going to feed my family for dinner!  Have a great week, everyone.  

I'm linking up with:

• ·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com  
• ·       Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/
• ·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/
• ·       Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/