Thank you! Thank you!! ssomerville...I roll one long rectangle, use my bench scraper to cut in half lengthwise, then bang out the triangles. Super fast and easy and consistent! teresa_mn and mustangs...I think the secret is to underbake, which is probably not very scone-like, but I only bake them about 10 minutes...12 max. They are waaaaay too dry if baked the length of time the recipe states. ann_t...they still don't rise like yours! But I'm getting there!! :) maxmom...yes, I use the RLB recipe. I don't use a food processor, just my hands! I use heavy whipping cream. The one thing I started doing after mixing in the cream and chips, dried fruit, whatever...is use my hands to form all the dough and dry bits into a ball (somewhat kneading it and continuing to push it all together) before I put it on the mat to roll. The 4 times roll, fold, repeat builds the layers in the dough. I'm not all that gentle with it, as opposed to biscuits...that I only roll once (no folding, etc) and use TLC! Lastly, I do not brush the tops of the scones (or biscuits). Thank you again all!! :)

Primer: Pre-ferment is a method by which a small dough is made of yeast, flour and water, to develop the activity and flavor of the yeast, usually overnight. "Ferment" refers to the yeast activity in the final bread dough. Biga (Italian) and levain (French) are pre-ferments. Usually, however not exclusively, bigas are made with commercial yeast, and levains are made with sourdough starter or saved levain starter. Those distinctions refer to the origins of the words. Many bakers use the words interchangeably. If you're not sure, just say "pre-ferment" and you're covered. Similarly, banneton, a woven basket, usually lined with cloth (French) and brotform, a coiled basket, less often lined with cloth (German) are used interchangeably for both types. In English, you can say "bread form" or "dough basket". Many people say "proofing basket", but I don't care for the word "proof" as a synonym for "rise". I'm not old, but I remember proving cake yeast before dry yeast was stable, but fresh yeast could have died. The yeast was proven (i.e., "proofed"), when the biga rose. The rises of the main dough were a given unless something really bad happened. Nowadays, people just toss in dried yeast and expect it to rise, and it does, so they proof in the baskets. This is a persnickety quibble that has no real meaning to anyone but me. :) Hydration refers to the weight of water in the dough based on the amount of flour, and is usually expressed as a percentage. The flour is always 100%. If there are different flours in the dough, then they have partial percentages, e.g., 95% unbleached white flour and 5% whole wheat (a substitute for European style bread flour). Add them up and they equal 100% because the flour is always 100%. This allows one to discuss, clearly, the amount of water in the dough, which can be more useful than adjectives such as loose, wet, sticky, tight, tacky, etc. If you have 1000g total of flour in your dough, and your recipe calls for 68% hydration, you would use 680g of water. If you have 650g of white flour, 120g of whole wheat, and 30g of rye flour, for a total of 800g flour, 68% hydration would mean 544g of water. These percentages really only apply to what's in the bowl. When you do your stretch and folds on additional flour, you're changing the percentage. When you wet your hands to do them, you're also changing the percentage. So they make it easier to talk about baking, but every baker is still going to have slightly different results. Factor in environment--flour absorbs humidity from the air, and also releases it and dries out. It also has a fat component, though much less with white flour, especially bleached. (Put your white flour in a half full, air tight container for a year (i.e., trapping in some air so oxidation will take place), and even the bleached stuff will smell rancid when you open it up (personal experience talking).) If you oil your surfaces, hands, etc., a trace of oil can also be added, mostly negligible, but sometimes a few drops can make a big difference. With all of those factors, as well, the percentages refer to the basic recipe, and the rest is whatever works for you. Like S&P to taste. Experience is king. Repetition is important. Getting a feel for it is crucial.

I’ve had my instant pot for about two years and though it was a LONG learning curve, I use it repetitively for things I like. As an aside, if you’re in the honeymoon phase check out the community facebook page for instant pot owners. A couple of things I learned along the way: Thickness matters. I don’t know why it took me so long to understand this concept; that it isn’t necessarily how many pounds of meat but also how thick. Lorna Sass, aka Queen of Pressure Cooking, in fact highlights this fact in her "Pressure Perfect", as does an exhaustive cooking blog pressurecookrecipes. When I make barbacoa now, I actually have written how thick my pieces are to correlate with the correct time. Take notes if you want to replicate (which is kind of the way I cook at this point). I have my brown rice down to a science for what I like (grams of brown rice, rinsed, water, bit of olive oil, time, npr#) . I just made black-eyed peas (see Hoppin Johnthread) and it took me two tries to get them the way I like. If you need to cook a bit longer, you can repressurize. I found if you rinse your lid in cold water, the lid will go back easily. If you want your vegetables to retain some structure (some tooth) in your soup or stew, you may not want to cook them in your pressure cooker with your soup or stew. Often times when I’m making minestrone,ribollita, stew, etc., I’ll keep out some of the carrots, zucchini, etc. after sauteeing (or I’ll microwave them separately), refrigerate and add when I open the lid. The ones left in the soup or stew add to the flavor. If potatoes are used, I do them separately for four minutes and add at end. I’ll also reseason at the end cause I’ve think herbs can become muted. Lastly, I have to share kind of cheez whiz confession. My son and I absolutely love the pasta with jarred sauce in the pressure cooker. You know the one – pasta mixed with jar of sauce, jar of water for half the time? Good grief, I it is like an adult version of spaghettios, and I love it. So, I wrote down the exact amounts and time:) Bottom line: when you hit that sweet spot, the food is really exceptional; it just took me a long time to find it. PS – I may have to go back to that honeymoon phase cause folks are posting about using yogurt setting to proof dough:)

2Many, I was thinking about how to use the 12" tube for shorter smokes. First thought was to loosely crumple some aluminum foil and stuff in as a space filler and then add pellets to fill. (Except getting foil out would be a bit of a pain.). Thinking that a partial loose fill might cause the pellets to burn too fast? After I ended up with that huge 40# bag of pellets decided not to worry about it; I'll just fill it up and let 'er burn out past the time I remove the food. With pricier pellets, yeh, I'd try conserving the fuel. Course this then strengthens the argument for adding a 6" tube...for shorter smokes and adding part way thru longer smokes. Then again, I was pondering last night why something like a tomato paste can or two with a bunch of holes punched in it wouldn't work... (from a brand with a removable paper label.) Pulled a couple of chicken halves out of the freezer last night. Going to brine overnight and smoke 'em tomorrow. Thinking I'll try to confine the smoke a bit better with the chicken going on what you learned with your bird. I bought the chicken already halved (was in the reduced 'Use today or freeze' bin--perfect, I thought for experiments!) so the halves may be a little more receptive to smoke than a whole bird? Also, more prone to drying out but brining ought to help offset that... This is actually kinda' fun to do. Needed that cause I get burned out on cooking!