After seeing the recommendation from @Aubergine for ATK’s British style currant scones, I had to try them. I made a half-batch “my way”, taking a few short-cuts. I did not use a food processor, but whisked the dry and grated in the butter, working it in with my hands. I used 2% milk instead of whole. Also, while I know no proper British scone is cut into wedges, I did it anyway. I chilled both the dry and wet before mixing, and baked on parchment over silpat for 18 minutes.
I liked these, although maybe not quite as much as other currant or cream scones I’ve made, most of which call for cream (not milk) and possibly more butter. To its credit, however, the ATK scone is lighter, less rich, and easier to throw together. It has its place in the scheme of things and I’ll make it again (although I might swap a tablespoon or two of the milk for heavy cream and judge the results).
A half recipe of the ATK sour cream chocolate bundt cake.
We’ve been getting the house painted and in that time we have been feeding the painter (and his assistant when he was here) a lot of the things I’ve made. It was pouring rain yesterday for most of the day, so he didn’t come by to finish up, but he eventually did stop by and my mom said it was basically an excuse to see if I’d be willing to bake him a chocolate cake .
Of course if you tell me chocolate cake that could mean so many different styles, but I ultimately settled on this because I’ve never had anyone not love it and it can be transported pretty easily. I’ll glaze it with ganache for an extra chocolate touch since he says he loves chocolate.
I actually started making ATK’s blackout cake because I’d been wanting to try it and I didn’t have sour cream on hand (I started a batch of kefir cream last night just in case), but I wasn’t thrilled with it because I found the cake itself too sweet and more so when combined with the pudding, which is unlike blackout cake I’ve had; and because I thought it wouldn’t survive transporting on his motorbike, since the filling is a slippery pudding layer. I’m glad I prepped the kefir cream!
I made those same SK chocolate chip muffins today and completely failed. The texture was dry, dense, and gummy. I haven’t failed so bad in a long time. The reviews are very favorable so not sure what I did wrong. Deb said in the comments that sour cream was ok, and @sallyt used the same. I used butter, not oil, as well as light brown sugar and natural cocoa. There is no baking powder in the recipe, only baking soda, which is unusual. It took a long time for me to incorporate all the flour after I dumped it. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone the one bowl route and whisked dry ingredients separately. I gave them all away, and felt bad for doing it, too.
Also made the same currant scones yesterday. I only got 10, but was happy with the results. If I had to nitpick, I’d make them a bit smaller and there is too much baking powder taste leftover, but butter and jam fixes that. From the recipe it seemed like you aren’t supposed to worry about keeping everything cold in this recipe (it calls for soft butter even.) The dough was sticky and a bit difficult on a humid day, but worth the effort for me. Texture was very similar to @MunchkinRedux above.
I was very surprised by the crumb (in a good way). The recipe would have you knead the dough 25-30 times until smooth. That seemed so counter to me, that instead I did the cut and stack thing 6 or 8 times and called it good. I might try this one again with actual kneading, and see how it impacts the outcome.
I’m working my way through 30 or so different scone recipes, trying to get a handle on how the different ingredients and dough handling each effects the outcome. It’s a rather large rabbit hole.
This recipe was one of the very few I selected which called for milk as the moistener.
Only baking soda as a leavener is fine and somewhat common with chocolate baked goods. The cake I baked today is made only with baking soda even though it’s made with Dutch process cocoa, which is typically paired with baking powder rather than soda. In the case of the muffins, it should be fine considering you used natural cocoa, sour cream, and light brown sugar, which are all acidic.
But to be honest, I often find Deb’s original recipes to have issues, which is why I like her blog best when she’s essentially testing other people’s recipes.
Whenever I’ve made chocolate muffins I’ve used milk and like it best. I think it gives lighter texture and flavor than sour cream.
My kiddo picked some rhubarb from the store and I was going to do a sorbet with it. But you all inspired me with the SK snacking cake, so I made that instead today. Delicious! Delectable! But to be fair, I would have said the same if I just had a bowl of the sugared and stewed rhubarb, maybe with a little granola on top. Rhubarb is just magic.
This recipe has both milk and yogurt (in my case milk and sour cream. )
My standard banana bread recipe is with only baking soda, but I have to mix the soda with dry ingredients first and then fold it in really fast to get optimal results. After hundreds of loaves and trying to take many shortcuts, I’ve accepted that’s just how it is.
However, in this muffin recipe, the soda is mixed in with the wet ingredients, then the cocoa is mixed in, and then finally the flour is added. I thought, maybe banana bread is heavier, so in this case the time issue might not be so important. Also, Deb only tested with Dutch process cocoa and half Dutch process cocoa (Special Dark), not fully natural cocoa. Besides reacting with baking soda, though, I’m uncertain how natural cocoa will affect the results vs Dutch process cocoa. Maybe the extra acidity in sour cream reacted with all the baking soda, leaving none behind for the cocoa powder. But, again, I’m not sure if that is significant. The good thing about a failure: it gives me something to think about when doing chores.
The blackout cake well-chilled and settled is pretty delicious today but still has no business being transported anywhere. This is likely why most bakeries that do blackout cake tend to do it in cupcake form these days and it’s going to be my way of making it in the future. It’s Just much easier to fill a cupcake with pudding because there’s no concern of layers sliding all over the place.
Yes, please write a sconepedia for us when you are finished. American, French, Scottish, English, Italian, Irish, I go nuts trying to figure out if there’s any way to define them.
The ATK recipe is similar to the video I’m linking below. I had to use a bench scraper, though. My dough was way too sticky and never got smooth like in this video, but I did knead it a lot. I remember the first time I saw this video, it was so contrary to what I knew about scones and keeping ingredients cold. When he let the scones rest before baking (7:15 timestamp) , I started questioning all my values.
I’m planning to make this tomorrow, will gift the cake the next day, Saturday May 28. I have 3 Nordic Ware bundt pans, want to use the square one. I looked hard but couldn’t see cup size. I added cups of water and it came to 7 cups, leaving about 1 inch rim empty.
Recipe says for a 12 cup pan to make 4 50-gram size cupcakes then put rest of batter into cake pan.
Please help me, how many cupcakes should I make with batter before pouring rest into cake pan.
The recipe is also reprinted here, and this one lacks the cupcake direction for using a 12-cup pan, but says to use a 14-cup or larger bundt pan. So you could halve the recipe for your 7-cup pan.
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