CookThatBook

Written & photographed by
Stay-At-Home-Chef

Kicking off our return to Monthly Miettes, Aimée from Food, Je t’Aimée tasked us with making Crème Fraîche Scones. Apparently, these scones are no longer sold at Miette bakeries but due to popular demand the recipe was included in the cookbook. Crème fraîche is added in order to provide the dough with a slight tang to compliment the lemon zest, and also to keep the scones nice and moist. Delicately treating the dough along with the stipulated technique of freezing the scones prior to baking gives these Miette favourites their famed flakiness.

I was excited. My hubby loves scones and I had promised the girls a special tea party for their teddy bear picnic. The stage was set for success. Unfortunately things don’t always go as planned…

Right off the bat I knew the texture of the dough was off. I mixed the dry ingredients with the butter until it looked like cornmeal, but after adding the crème fraîche and heavy cream the dough was still too dry. The recipe says it should look “undermixed and crumbly” but with 3 ½ cups of flour with a mere 1/3 cup each of crème fraîche and cream there just wasn’t enough liquid. So I added more cream. And then some more. But despite the additional liquid when I pressed the dough into the pan I quickly decided it was nothing more than a hopeless mess.

Frustrated at yet another flawed recipe in a book that continues to underwhelm me, I cut my loses and dumped the dough.

But scones had been promised and scones were expected so scones there would just have to be!

In the end I found a fabulous recipe on epicurious which turned out so well I am adding it to my collection of family favourite recipes. Served with strawberry jam and some Devon cream it was pure heaven. As for the Miette recipe, I hope the other blogger have more success. I’m not ready to give up on this book! Let’s hope next month’s results are better.

For more information on Monthly Miettes or if you’re interested in participating, please visit Food: Je t’Aimée