The Simple Things: Multigrain Scones

I really have been enjoying graduate school so far. The one thing that I miss is cooking for people. And the fact that I don't have people for whom I can cook means that I need to make things either (1) in small enough portions that they only feed me or (2) make things that can be easily saved for another time.

As such, I have really become fascinated by the simpler foods: things that can be made simply, but still taste delicious. So, here is my first post on the simple things that make me smile.

Scones

I loosely adapted these multigrain scones from my favorite white-flour scone recipe. I actually cannot find where the scone recipe originated-- but it might have been something like My First Baking Book. I didn't have any currants, and, in my view, white flour scones without currents are really boring. American scones-- those wedge-shaped frosted things you find in coffee shops-- tend to have all sorts of flavors added to them to combat this problem. I, however, wanted something simple, so I rummaged through my cupboard and tried something out. It worked and I really like them.

The following recipe has many different possible variations. Play around with it! I will put the variations in endnotes so the recipe is easier to follow.

Multigrain Scones (can make between 8 and 16 scones, depending upon the size)

Ingredients

• 1 cup white whole wheat flour [1]
• 1/4 cup red whole wheat flour [2]
• 1/4 cup grains (I used Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal) [3]
• 2 1/4 teaspoons (or 1 tablespoon) baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar [4]
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cold (1/2 of a stick, 4 tablespoons)
• 3/4 cup milk [5]
• 1/3 cup currants [6]

Method

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
• Mix together the flours, grains, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl.

Dry Ingredients

• Cut the butter into pieces and add it to the mixture. Use a large fork to mix the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is the consistency of bread crumbs.
• Then add the milk (and optional currants).
• Mix until a sticky dough forms. If it is not sticky, add more milk. Only mix until the dough forms and all the dry spots are gone. Do not overmix.

Sticky Dough

•  Drop them onto a pan in chunks between the size of chestnuts (produces about 16) and the size of half a tennis ball (produces about 8). I do not tend to shape my scones. However, you can shape your scones like wedges, like Southern biscuits, or in various other ways.
• Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees F or until they are brown around the edges.
• Eat within 24 hours. 
• They can also be frozen to preserve freshness. Wait until they cool completely and then put sets in airtight containers and put in the freezer. You can warm them in a toaster oven directly from frozen (bake at around 325 until hot all the way through and brown on top-- usually 3-4 minutes in my toaster oven). Otherwise, you can thaw them for a few hours and eat them at room temperature.

I really love these scones. They are faster to make than bread and I can freeze a bunch of them and toast them fresh each day.

Endnotes:

1. By this, as per usual, I mean whole wheat flour from white wheat (as opposed to red wheat). You can use either hard or soft wheat for these scones. The harder the wheat, the more dense the texture will be. I tend to use hard wheat because it's what is available to me (as I am restricted to the grocery stores within walking distance). However, soft wheat is generally more flavorful. Beware though, if you use soft wheat, you must reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe. 
2. If you like the richer nuttier flavor, switch amounts for the red wheat and the white wheat in the recipe, or just make the entire thing red wheat. If you do this, you will have to add a little bit more liquid. If you want lighter/whiter scones, replace this with white flour. 
3. You can use any multigrain mix which appeals to you (or obviously mix your own). The important thing is the courseness of the grind. You need the pieces of grain to be about the size of an amaranth grain). If you've never seen amaranth, I highly recommend adding it to breads that you plan on toasting, but another reference might be about 1/2 the size of a piece of toasted wheat germ. If it's too big, it will be crunchy. 
4. If you like sweeter scones, you can add more sugar either into the mix or on top. I sprinkled about half a teaspoon of cinnamon-sugar on the top of each of my apple scones when I made them (replacing the currants with chopped apple). You can also glaze them, if you so desire. Sue has some creative ideas about glazing in her various scone recipes.
5. I use nonfat milk because I like my scones lighter (and also because it has less calories). However, you can also use any other kind of milk. I made the most recent set (the ones pictured with the currants) with lowfat buttermilk because Servia had some left over from Christmas. They were a little heavier and more tender than the ones that I make at school. If you like heavier scones, try with buttermilk or cream.
6. Currants are optional. You can also substitute raisins, fresh chopped apple, chopped nuts, dried fruit (cranberries, etc), fresh blueberries, etc. I tried them with chopped apple once and I quite liked them. However, if you want a distinctly apple flavor, you may want to try adding more apple than 1/3 cup or substituting a small portion of the milk with apple juice or apple cider.

Amarnath Wheat Sourdough

Boule

One of the bread recipes that I use for experimentation is Wild Yeast's Norwich-More Sourdough. It's a wonderfully easy recipe, once I realized a few things (such as that it requires 20-35 minutes under steam rather than the 8 in the recipe and, in my oven at least, it needs a higher oven temperature), things actually work out fairly well. Usually, I just post modifications, but today because the bread is so good and is quite different from the recipe.

Crust and Crumb

 Amarnath Wheat Sourdough

Ingredients

• 480g of sourdough starter 100% hydration (I used about 75% white starter and 25% whole wheat starter) May I suggest using some fairly lively sourdough starter. Mine was about 50-50 of starter from the refrigerator and starter that had been newly refreshed a few hours before.
• 500g white whole wheat starter
• 175g bread flour I ended up using bleached because I bought it by accident but, as always, I suggest unbleached
• 150g barley flour This gives a lovely sweetness to the crust. Delicious, seriously.
• 130g red whole wheat flour
• 610g + 50g water around 75 degrees F (total 660g)
• 50g Amarnath (the seeds, not flour)
• 23g salt

Directions
Day 1:

• Mix the sourdough starter, flours, and 610g water in a bowl. Mix until it forms a homogenous dough.

Dough

• Let the bowl sit for a 30 minute autolyse period under plastic wrap or similar.
• Then mix in the amarnath, salt, and water. Mix a little and then let it sit for 5-10 minutes to allow the bread to soak up the water. 
• Knead the bread for 2-3 minutes. Then do a stretch-and-fold.
• Wait 10 minutes and do another stretch-and-fold.
• Wait 10 minutes and do another stretch-and-fold.
• Wait 10 minutes and do another stretch-and-fold. (so 4 times total)
• Cover the bowl for 45 minutes (at around 75 degrees F) and  do another stretch-and-fold.
• Cover the bowl for 45 minutes (at around 75 degrees F) and  do a final stretch-and-fold (2 times total)
• Cover the bowl for 20 minutes  (at around 75 degrees F) to finish the bulk fermentation.
• Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 3 medium loaves or 2 quite large loaves.
• Preshape the balls lightly into round.
• Bench rest for 20 minutes. Cover them with something. If you live in a dry climate, make sure to cover them in an airtight fashion-- I usually turn large bowls over them. While they are resting, flour bannetons or similar shaping devices for the final proofing.
• Then shape the loaves into your desired shape and place them into bannetons.
• They need to proof for 1 hour and 45 minutes before they are placed in the refrigerator overnight.
• Make sure they go into the refrigerator for 16 hours or less.

Day 2:

• Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F about 30 minutes before you take the dough out of the refrigerator.
• Take them out of the refrigerator, score them, and immediately place them into the oven under steam.
• After 20-35 minutes under steam (depending upon how tightly the steam container closes. I would suggest trying about 25 minutes. It is done when it begins to be golden and the tips of the score marks are beginning to be brown.

Golden with a hint of brown on the tips of the score marks.

• Cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the crust is a rich brown and the internal temperature reaches 210 degrees F.
• Cool for 45 minutes before eating.

Bread with Brie (it also goes well with almond butter)

Flavor Notes: I totally forgot (until a comment reminded me) that I hadn't talked about the flavor of this bread. it is absolutely delicious. It's wheaty (from the white whole wheat), but it doesn't have that usual bitterness that I associate with white whole wheat. Instead it's got this warm, complex, nutty richness too it (which I believe comes from the amarnath) and a hint of sweetness (from the barley). Five stars.

While I share with you the wonderful success I had today, I should also explain two things that went wrong (although they didn't keep it from being a success).

First, a small mistake, I messed up the autolyse period (I extended it it an hour because I wasn't paying attention). As such, when I mixed in the salt, water and amarneth, I messed up the gluten structure. Being a reasonably practiced at breadmaking, I was able to manipulate the dough in such a way that I got the gluten structure back together (mostly), but the crumb was still a lot tighter than it should have been.

Tight Crumb

However, the crumb did have a wonderful gelatinized structure and it was moist and delicious.

Cool picture of the crumb

I highly suggest making this bread and the crumb structure will be a lot better if you don't make mistakes :)

Second, I messed up on the shaping of the two batards. At first, I thought that I had underproofed the dough, but I quickly realized that I had not when the boule came out fine. This is what happens when you don't shape a batard well. Seriously, I need lessons. Advice anyone?

Comparison of the two loaves

Even the less pretty one will taste delicious.

Tasting Note 02/18/13: This bread makes some of the best toast that I have ever tasted. Toasting brings out the barley sweetness of the bread creating an amazing depth of flavor with the warm wheaty taste. Seriously delicious. You will not regret making this bread, I promise. I'm so excited that I have two more loaves of this in my freezer!

I am submitting this to Yeast Spotting.