There is no butter in the ingredient list. How much butter is in the recipe?

6 tablespoons of butter. I can't remember if it had 1 Tablespoon of baking soda or a 1/2 Tbs.

6 Tablespoons seems like a lot of butter. Could it have been too much fat?

Are you sure the temp of the oven was correct? Maybe it was actually lower than it showed?

AM

It seems like a normal recipe to me, I use Ann T's recipe and it takes 2 1/4 cups flour, 6 tbls cold butter and 1 cup cream, but no egg. I combine the dry ingredients, cut in very cold butter with my pastry blender, then add the rest of the ingredients and toss with a fork until just combined, then pat out and bake.

Like biscuits, they don't like to be handled very much and I find that unless the butter is cold from the fridge, my scones don't rise well and the butter melts out, just as you described.

Was the butter cold or at room temperature, that might have been the problem....

Annie

The recipe isn't much different than mine, except I never use eggs in scones. And my recipe calls for 1 cup of cream. The butter sounds perfect. Any thing from 6 to 8 tablespoons is normal in scones.

So I have no idea why your scones didn't turn out. Unless you cut the butter to fine. For flakey biscuits or scones the butter should be cut so that you can still see the little pieces. About the size of peas. My suggestion is to just try again.

Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table

Scones (Raspberry, Blueberry, Fresh Currants,etc..)
===================================================
Edited Dec/2009

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 Tbsp. cold butter
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup fresh raspberries
extra cream and sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut butter into mixture with pastry blender until butter is size of peas. Add cream and raspberries to dry ingredients. Mix lightly with fork until mixture forms a stiff dough. Knead on floured board just to incorporate all flour; try not to damage berries.

Roll into 7-inch round and cut into 6 or 8 wedges. Place 1 inch apart on greased baking sheet; brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

Note: When adding fruit to the scone mixture, make sure the raspberries or blueberries are frozen. Otherwise you end up with crushed fruit. Still tastes as good, but not as pretty. I usually add the cream and when the dough has almost come together I add the frozen fruit. With the Chocolate you can add it along with the cream.

NOTE: A good way to cut the butter into biscuits or scones is to use a box grater.

That's about how much butter I'd use, too, although I don't use an egg and would have had a little more cream.

Was the butter cold? And did the oven function OK for other items?

Did you check that the baking powder was still active? That has been my downfall (in more ways than one).

Sue

We just got home from Ohio. My 81 yo MIL had a stroke at 10:10 Christmas evening. We got her to the hospital within 30 minutes for treatment. Thank goodness there is no residual weakness and her speech is okay now. Unbeknownst to any of us, her heart rate was very low, 28-48 bps. She is going to have a pacemaker implanted on Tuesday.

The scone recipe is very similar to Ann T's. The butter was frozen. I always grate butter rather than cutting it in small chunks. Blueberries were fresh, which I've used before. I used baking powder from the same container (exp. Feb 2011) that I used last week to make the same recipe. Turned out nicely. Would mixing the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder together Friday make any difference? It was in a lock and lock container in the garage until I made the scones Saturday night.

Oh, well.

Judy

Judy, mixing the dry ingredients shouldn't have had that effect, or all the "mixes" available today wouldn't be available.

It was a different oven, not your own? If the butter was cold and you've used the recipe successfully in the past, I'm going to blame it on an unfamiliar oven!

Annie

Yep, that is what I keep telling DH, mixing isn't the problem.

Good plan, lol, it was DMIL's oven.

Possibly the silpat? I know that things like cookies and breads cook differently on silpat than on parchment....
Linda c

I wouldn't worry about it at all as it happens to everyone.
Try it again, see what you can learn and write it all down.
I had a major failure recently, for a large group of people and while I hated that feeling, that was yesterday and I failed while attempting something and everyone else did nothing so they could hardly complain - and they didn't they were gracious, and completely not understanding why I was upset!

Linda, I wondered about that, too. I have never used a silpat.

bbz, how nice the people were understanding. My family was, too. I just set the bar too high sometimes. OTOH, the bread I was making tonight didn't rise. I can't remember the last time that happened. I'll add more yeast tomorrow and try again.

Silpat is like any silicone product, which means there is a certain insulation factor (Think of silicone potholders and trivets.) and that can affect the final results if not allowed for.

But really, regardless of the reasons for the "scone failure", you made the effort to provide something homemade. If I were there I'd appreciate the effort and not worry about anything else.

Carol

Carol, you are sweet. DMIL uses the Silpat lots and loves it. I didn't give much thought to using it. Oops!

A Silpat shouldn't have made the bottom seem fried or affected the browning of the tops.

I'm flummoxed! When in doubt, blame the oven! :)

I hope your MIL recovers well and quickly.

I have had no luck using silpat for certain things. Cookies are OK but other things like puff pastry or phylo turn out oily and hard on the bottom.

I think it's because there is no absorption factor to the silpat and the butter just melts, gets too hot and fry's the bottoms......that's my story and I'm sticking to it ! LOL