Gluten-free scone test

I have a Slow Food strawberry celebration in a couple of weeks.  I thought I would spend a bit of time testing scone recipes, so I used one based on Delia Smith's recipe and one based on a recipe from BBC Good Food.


Delia's scone recipe

225g flour
3tsp baking powder
75g butter
40g sugar
1 egg
5tbsp yogurt - to get to soft dough (swap with water and squeeze of lemon if not using dairy - not tested)


rub fat into flour, stir in sugar, mix yogurt and egg and stir into flour.  You should have a dough which holds well together and feels quite soft.  Pat out onto a floured board and cut circles or other shapes.  Place on a floured baking tray and cook at 200C for ten minutes.

too sweet for my taste but probably right for strawberry jam and cream


less sweet:
BBC Good Food scone


tried again - more baking powder and more liquid

200g flour
4 tsp baking powder
100ml yogurt/water mix  -2 tbsp yogurt topped up with water.  Use what is needed to make wet dough.
1 egg
40g butter
25g sugar

Whisk baking powder into flour, rub in butter.  Stir in sugar.  Stir egg and yogurt together, add half the water to this mixture.  Stir into flour mix.  Add more water as needed to make a wet dough.  It should look too wet to be able to cut out.  Dump dough onto a floured board and pat into shape.  Using a floured cutter make whatever shape you want - I did ten round scones.  Just squish dough together and re-pat as needed until dough is used up.  Bake 200C for about ten minutes.




Both of these taste fine, and are hard to tell apart.  Using the lower fat, lower sugar scone recipe makes sense as they are so similar when baked.  


TT likes them better than normal wheat scones as they don't stick to the roof of the mouth.  They don't rise as much as the scones I used to make, but are good to eat.

I'll freeze some and see how they respond.  When I first gave up gluten I made scones with Doves Farm flour - they were fine eaten immediately but did the sandy thing when frozen and de-frosted.



My mother's recipe (on a tiny piece of paper I have from when I went to university in 1979):

1 lb flour, 1/2tsp salt, 2-3 oz margarine, 2level tsp bicarb of soda, 4.5 level tsp cream of tarter, half pt fresh milk OR 4-6 level tsp baking powder and 1/2 pt fresh milk

So, I grew up with scones that were served with soup, which is probably why I think these first two scones taste too sweet to me.   This recipe also has a lot less fat.  I grew up in India, and buying bread wasn't easy, so plain scones / soda breads were a staple part of our diet.

Here are instructions for making your own gluten-free baking powder mix